


Immunity

by itsywalker



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Hurt Carl Grimes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One-Eyed Carl Grimes, Panic Attacks, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Abuse, Violence, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-03-05 09:35:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18825994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsywalker/pseuds/itsywalker
Summary: Carl’s world is flipped completely upside down after being bitten by a walker in the woods helping a stranger, but this double crescent shaped wound sets off a chain of events that even in his wildest dreams he never would have imagined.





	1. BURN

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a dream that was so all consuming I found it hard to concentrate on anything for a few days after waking, until I began to write this out. Also writing this is a way to help cope with the loss of TWD’s Carl Grimes, which I am still very much in denial about and shattered by. This is my first story here so please, be gentle and kind! 
> 
> Story warnings don’t apply until further down the line, at which time you will be warned beforehand, just in case.

Carl stumbled on the path and fell to his knees at the edge of the woods surrounding the walled community of Alexandria. He was confident no one could see him here, but even if they did, he wasn't sure he really cared. After everything he'd been through, everything he survived, this is how he was going out. To be bitten by a walker trying to help a stranger. 

He thought he'd become a monster. That the years living in the world that was now made him this way, hard, a killer, and even though it had given him strength, he was fifteen years old and thought he was growing up to be a man without a heart. But he wasn't, and it didn't. Despite everything, he still had mercy and for what if it landed him here?

He felt a wave of warmth wash over him and wasn't sure if it was from the bite or from the sobbing that had now overcome him. He tried to take a deep breath but it wouldn't come. He felt like he couldn't get air into his lungs and was afraid he might be having a panic attack. Which would be completely valid, everyone knows what happens when you get bit by a walker. 

He had lied and said he was fine, took the stranger down to the sewers beneath the community and made sure he had food. He now was no longer a stranger. Siddiq was his name. And Carl knew the whole time he has been in shock, just going through the motions. In denial. This couldn't have happened to him. This couldn't be happening to him. But it was and there wasn't anything that anyone could do about it. He promised Siddiq that he would talk to his dad about him joining their community and left. Those were the events that led up to his breakdown at the edge of the woods. 

He felt a numbness begin to ease itself onto him and shakily got to his feet. His head was already spinning it was a sick realization that he wouldn’t have very much time now and he needed to get going. So, like he had always done, he wiped away the tears and just pushed on.

Once back home, he quickly ran to the bathroom and tore off his shirt. There it was. The mark. It hadn't bleed much and ironically it really didn't look too bad. But Carl knew better, he knew it was. The numbness still lingering with him got him through the shower, before he bandaged up the wound that would end him and he made a beeline to the one person he knew he needed to see most, his baby sister. Although no longer a baby, she reached for him and giggled his name, excited to see him back. Carl's felt as if his heart had been painfully squeezed. This would probably be the last time she ever did again.

In hindsight he realized some of the things he did next were probably a little stupid. He planted a tree, went out of his way to say hello to a few people he normally would have walked by, read Judith's favorite book with her six times in a row, finger painted with her and left their hand prints in bright blue paint on the porch, took Polaroids of them together and put them on his dad's dresser, his heart breaking imagining his father’s reaction when he returned home to see them and to discover that Carl was gone and what had happened to him. He didn't want to admit it but felt ashamed. How could he have let this happen? And he knew his dad would be heartbroken, Michonne would certainly feel like she lost another son, and Judith would never remember him. But they would all be disappointed in him. For being so reckless, for hurting them in the absolute worse way in such an avoidable way. 

He wanted them not to more than anything in the world, but his eye welled up as he look down at the drying paint on the wood and scooped up Judith to take her back inside. He knew his dad would be shattered. He knew that almost all they had left in this world was each other and he was almost afraid that his father wouldn't be able to go on without him. He imagined his dad coming out to this spot and putting his hand over Carl's painted hand print and the thought almost made him throw up.

He put Judith down for a nap and went to his room. Grabbing a stack of paper and pen he sat down on the floor and began to write. Letters to his dad, Michonne, Enid, Daryl, Maggie, Carol, and Judith. It took him longer than he thought it would. And although he was afraid he might breakdown several times saying goodbye to everyone, he didn't, but his hand did being to shake. He paused for a moment, having neatly folded all of the letters and stacked them together, before putting his pen back to paper and writing the final letter recipient's name, Negan. 

At first he wanted to blame Negan. This was all his fault. But it wasn't. It was the world they lived in now. And he knew this wasn't what anyone had wanted. Before all of this, this wasn't who anyone was. But they were now, and they all were trying to find a way to make it out. He hoped that his dad and Negan could find peace and he told him he wished he could have seen it. Oddly in the moment he didn't feel any anger toward Negan anymore, despite everything he had done to his family and friends. He just wanted everyone working together, he knew it was the way out and the way forward.

As he wrapped up Negan's letter, his hand began to shake again. For a second he thought his blood sugar was low and he needed to eat, but grossly realized that wasn't what was happening to him. He was dying. He didn't need to eat, he would leave the extra food here for the living who would remain after him and who would need it.

He did drink a glass of water and swallow four ibuprofen pills in vain, an attempt to reject the fever that seemed to be increasing in strength by the minute. Head swimming, he didn't want to stop. He was afraid if he did he would break down again and he didn't want to. He wanted to stay strong. Still, he laid on the couch to stop his head from spinning and somehow he dozed off.

The sound of people yelling outside woke him and he was shocked to see the sun was beginning to go down. He jumped up off the couch and gasped and he realized his entire body felt it was lit on fire. His muscles burning, the sickening reality of what had happened to him surfaced again but he still went straight to the door and swung it open, stepping outside.

Negan was outside of the gates, yelling into what Carl assumed was a microphone or megaphone. He flew up the ladder to the outlook so fast, he stumbled a bit and hoped Negan hadn't noticed. It was a microphone and Negan was pissed, of course, about what Rick had done. "He's not home", Carl responded to what Negan had been yelling.

"Oh-ho-holy shit!" was Negan's response to seeing Carl up on the outlook, "Everybody hold your fire. It's Carl."

"Look at you. Answering the door like a big boy, " Negan teased, smirking. "I am so proud. Daddy's not home huh?"

Carl glared. For a moment the anger and rage he had felt toward Negan the past few months came to surface as Negan threatened, "Well I guess he's gonna get back to a big old smoky surprise."

"There's families in here. Kids. My little sister." Carl had responded. 

"Well that shit just breaks my heart. There's kids at the Sanctuary, you must've seen 'em." So everyone loses, Carl thought and that sinking feeling found its way back into the pit of his stomach. His ears started to buzz, and he knew he was sweating, but still he held his ground and forced himself to stay standing tall on two feet. He didn't hear all of what Negan was saying, but felt his nose and eye begin to burn at the mention of something about his mom. 

"None of this shit's fair kid. Hell, you know that. You had to kill your own mom. That is screwed up."

"Bad stuff happens but we can figure this out. We can stop this." Carl pleaded.

But Negan wanted apologizes, punishments and Carl responded, "Kill me," and he meant it. He would sacrifice himself if it meant no one else had to die, if it could make things different, it would be worth it. He didn't want to die, but he knew he was, it was gonna happen. Negan almost looked concerned at his request. Carl hoped that everyone remembered their escape plan and to go down into the sewers and that they all would make sure the kids weren't forgotten. He hoped Daryl or Tara remembered to grab Judith. And his heart clenched again at the thought of the photos he took with Judith that were now sitting on his dresser, knowing that there was a chance his dad would never see them, that she would have next to nothing to remember him by. 

Carl looked down, directly into Negan's eyes as he asked, "I mean was this the plan? Was it supposed to be this way? Is this who you wanted to be?” 

He heard the commotion of what must have been the cars at the other end of the community bursting through the gates and leading Saviors away, and ducked out and headed back down the ladder when he heard Negan yelling again, "Son of a bitch Carl! What that just a play?! I thought we were havin' a moment, you little asshole!"

Halfway down the ladder, Carl lost his grip and fell flat on his back. Wind knocked out of him he tried to take a deep breath, which seemed to becoming harder by the second, stars sparking in his vision and the last thing he heard was Negan shouting something about bombs before explosions went off, his hearing faded out and was replaced by a high-pitched whining. 

He stumbled up and away, trying to keep his focus on the task at hand in order to ensure everyone got to safety, but the explosions and gunfire around him was making his head pound and waves of nauseous to wash over him. The virus's effects seemed to be moving at rapid speed now, and the pain was making it difficult to walk. Ears ringing and eye burning from the smoke caused by the fire's all around the once safe community, he stumbled and began to fall, before feeling someone catch him under the arm, and his vision beginning to fade to black. 

For a moment he thought this was the end, but suddenly he was alert once again and being asked to head down into the sewers. The plan was working, it had to be, but Carl didn't have the strength to ask. He felt weak, physically but overwhelmingly mentally. The shame returned, he couldn't believe he let this happen. 

When Rick finally arrived in the sewers and saw Siddiq seating in safety with all of their family, friends, and neighbors, Carl told him, "I brought him here. That's how it happened."

Rick looked confused, so Carl just lifted his shirt, pulling back the bandage on the side of his torso beneath his ribs, revealing the walker bite that seemed to be killing him now at a rapid-fire pace. Michonne fell to her knees and that's when Carl began to let the tears fall again, mixing with the sweat covering his face.

Rick looked at him wide eyed and in shock, before helplessly looking around for help that could not come to save his boy who he had never failed to save. But this time he failed, and words failed him too, he could not think of anything to say or do to comfort Carl. 

"I, I don't", Rick began, shock settling in.

"Dad," Carl responded, unsure of what to say himself.

"How..." Rick tried to ask, but couldn't bring himself to say the words. How did you get bit. How did this unspeakable event happen that was now leading to your death. The death of Rick's entire world.

"Dad...it's alright. It's gotta be. I wasn't sure if you'd make it back, before...But just in case, you know..." And Carl handed Rick the stack of his goodbye letters, "I wanted to make sure I was able to say goodbye."

Carl began to shiver from the fever, and must of what happened next was a blur. He remembered talking to his dad, pleading him to stop all the fighting, and to make a new world happen, a better world, where everyone worked together. He remembered saying goodbye to his beautiful baby sister, who had been a reason for going on for so long, and giving her his hat that once belonged to their dad and always made him feel safe and close to him, telling Michonne that she was his best friend, and then he remembered his dad and Michonne helping him up out of the sewer and Rick wanting to get him to a house. The community was burning all around them and the pain felt like it was searing through Carl's veins so he told him he needed to stop, that it was okay, to just put him down here in the street. 

Instead Rick and Michonne took him to the nearby church in which an explosion had taken place, and the windows were all busted out, the walls charred. Carl could hear the fires crackling nearby and the smoke had irritated his lungs, that in addition to dying, made it difficult to take a deep breath.

"Thanks for...getting me here." He choked out, noticing how painfully hard his heart was beating. 

"I'm, I'm sorry. I, I just, I didn't, I didn't want you out there. I, I..." Rick responded in a whisper, tears streaming down his face, his resolve fading away, unable to stay strong for his son anymore.

"No. No, for getting me here. For, for making it so I could be who, who I wound up."

Rick felt his heart shatter. Carl was everything to him. Always had been. Carl made him the man he was today, as much as he made Carl who he was. Everything he'd done and everywhere he'd gone was for Carl. Nothing could have prepared him for this and he knew he couldn't do it. He wouldn't make it through this. He couldn't go on after losing Carl. 

He made a promise to make the new world happen, even though in his heart he knew he didn't mean it. He told him he'd make it real, and he hated himself for it. He hated himself for not being able to give Carl his dying wish. But he wanted to make the world better for Carl. And without him there was no reason. 

Carl wasn't sure if his father meant what he said, but his vision was fading, his head was pounding, and his mouth was so uncomfortably dry. He felt like he was floating away, his dad's hand squeezing his own the only thing keeping him grounded. His other hand shaking, he reached down for his gun in the holster on his thigh. Despite his dad's pleas, he didn't want to end up a walker, and he didn't want his dad or Michonne to put him down either. He wanted to do it himself. 

Rick cried, leaning over him, and tears falling onto his face, "I love you, Carl. I love you so much. I'll make it real, I will" and the words comforted him but also hurt him, because again, he couldn't believe his let this happen. The avoidable pain he was inflicting on everyone because he had been stupid, weak. Suddenly he felt panic about to rise, and he wanted Michonne and Rick out of the church, so he could kill himself and this would be done. 

And then he felt a warmth different than the fever attacking his body, and he would have sworn he could smell his mom's hair. He wasn't sure of the scent but the feeling overwhelmed him, being a child with her arms wrapped around him, and his face in her neck, breathing in one of the only scents in the world that can be described as love.

Michonne and Rick began to leave the church, but before they walked through the door Carl had one last request and he needed to make sure his dad heard it.

"Burn it down."


	2. JUST

He didn't want his dad and Michonne to see him that way. Dead. He wanted to die and for the church to burn down around him and his body with it, just like the world was burning down around him. He didn't want his dad and Michonne to have to carry his body, to cry as they are burdened with the task of burying him.

He watched his dad's boots disappear through the front of the church and slowly raised the gun to his temple. The gun his dad had given to him just a few years ago. Years that seemed so long, in a time that felt like an eternity ago. Hand shaking uncontrollably, he pressed the metal barrel to the burning skin of his temple and put his finger on the trigger.

Then he hesitated. He didn’t expect the hesitation. The smoke from all the nearby fires was wafting in the air above him with the firelight filtering in through the remaining broken shards of church's stained glass windows. The flickering light distracted him from the pain, the heat, his inability to properly breathe. And then he smelled it again, his mom, her hair. He knew surely it was because he was dying that he imagined he smelled her. She was on the “other side” waiting for him, if there was such a thing, or maybe she had come to get him, to take him to the other side. 

Carl was positive he didn’t believe any of that. If he had before all of this he certainly didn’t anymore, but the thought did comfort him and if she had come to get him he was ready to go. 

Wasn't he? He was suddenly terrified at the thought of dying. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to leave his sister behind. He wanted to watch her grow and learn. He wanted to know she'd always remember him but he knew one day she wouldn't, she'd never forget his voice, she'd forget how safe she felt holding his hand or being in his arms. He wanted to live. 

But he knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t now. It was over. Or it would be soon. He pulled his gun back down in one swift movement and looked back at the front door of the church, both wishing his dad would come back in and hold him as he died, and terrified he'd come in and see that yet again Carl had failed, and was too weak to end it himself. The thought of his father coming back into this church and seeing his dead body scared him almost as much as the thought of him coming back to discover Carl couldn't do it because he was too afraid. So he took a shuddering breath and rolled over onto his stomach, slowly and shakily pushing onto his hands and knees.

It felt like it took hours for him to make it to the back of the church, to the low, blown out windows lining the back wall. He fired one shot into the floor, grabbed the edge of the window that had the least broken glass, and pulled himself up and over.

He flipped and landed on his back in the dirt below the window, where flowers had once been in a bed. They had all died or were burnt now, it was too dark to tell and Carl's vision was too fuzzy anyway. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. He got himself bit because he was being stupid, and now he was too weak to end it himself. He was going to let himself die out here, in the only place since this all began that he could really call home, as it burned to the ground, and to turn into the one thing he was most terrified of since this all began. Soon he'd be a walker.

He let himself rest for a moment in the dirt trying to catch his breath, but he realized he couldn't catch it, so he rolled back over. He was about 20 feet from the woods, and started to crawl his way there. His goal was simply to get out of sight so he could die as peacefully as possible. He took a glance back halfway there and saw that the church was on fire. Whether his dad heard the gunshot and did this for him or it just caught back on fire he didn't know, but it did bring him some comfort. As he reached the treeline he was sad to be leaving the hot glow of the fire for the cool air of the covered woods, even at the edge he could feel the difference and his fevered skin was shivering uncontrollably. 

Arms collapsing beneath him, he put his cheek onto the cold dirt. Taking a shuddering breath he allowed himself to cry again. He felt so much pity for himself and in this world there was no way to really believe in fairness anymore but he knew he didn't deserve this. He squeezed his eye shut tight, his head swimming again, the feeling of floating returning to him and he hoped that this was it, that he could just drift off and go, to wherever it is you go when you die. His hearing began to fade out again, but he was sure he heard voices but didn't care much. If they found him now it would be over soon anyway. 

"Carl?" A voice asked and a feeling of dread began to build in his chest. His dad found him, he knew how much of a coward he was. The voice continued.

"Well fuck me! What do we have here?!" It wasn't his dad's voice he was hearing as he died, it was Negan's. 

"Dammit." Carl groaned, surprised he still had the ability to speak. Fairness really wasn’t something that existed anymore.


	3. RESISTANT

Carl thought that no matter what happened when he died, that he would feel nothing or some sense of peace. If there was nothing after death, surely he wouldn’t still feel pain? And his muscles still felt like they were fire. Not a raging fire, but a smoldering one. One that was about to go out. Maybe it’s over, and my senses are dulling, my nerves are fading out, he thought. He lifted a hand and for a split second thought perhaps there was an afterlife and this was his soul, bringing his hand to his face to wipe hair out of his eye. He heard the chirping of birds and thought he must still be in the woods and he just blacked out. Realizing he still had hair, a hand, and a body, his eye shot open. 

Immediately he squinted. What seemed to be complete darkness a second ago was now blinding light. He was indoors, but the room had several windows all open to the sunlight with the warm early fall air coming in with the breeze along with the singing of the birds. 

“What the hell?”, he thought to himself slowly raising his head. It was no longer pounding and he realized the pain he had in his muscles was much less pronounced, a stiff ache more than anything. Looking around he realized he was in the bedroom of a very clean, bright house. It almost looked unreal in comparison to the harsh reality of the current state of the world. 

As if on cue, a middle aged woman with blonde hair in a high ponytail and clean, almost unworn clothes burst through the door, startling him. 

“Oh goodness! You’re awake!” She said brightly, too brightly in Carl’s opinion, for a walking in the room of a dying person. “How do you feel?!”

“W, what?” Carl stuttered, surprising himself with the ability to prop himself up onto his elbows, “What?” He asked again. 

“How do you feel, Honey? Are you in pain?” She approached him and tried to reach for his forehead, but he pulled away in apprehension, “I’m sorry!”, she apologized, “I’m Christina.”

Carl stared at her. “Okay...” Where was he? What was going on? 

“Negan found you in the woods. He said the community was almost completely burned down. You were alone? He said you were passed out.” Christina began and reached for a thermometer that Carl just noticed was among several medical items on the bedside table. Bandages, a syringe, vials, and a glass of water. Carl was suddenly incredibly thirsty and reached for the glass, realizing he was connected to an IV and in a panic tried to pull it out. 

“Carl!” Christina exclaimed, “It’s just fluids, Hon! You were out for a few days with a very high fever!” She reached for his hand and stilled it, and once confident he wasn’t going to pull it out she handed him the glass of water. “Here I’ll take it out!”

He gulped down the water in one drink, thinking the dryness in his mouth would never go away, and then sat in a sort of stunned silence as she removed everything from him that he hadn’t noticed before. 

“W, where am I? Is this a hospital? What happened?” He blurted out in one breath before panic began to settle back in, “I’ve been bitten! You have to get away!” He yelled, pushing her back away from him once she had pulled all the tubes from him. 

“Calm down!” She shouted, “Carl it’s okay! You’re okay!”

“What do you mean?! No it’s not!” Carl reached for his shirt and realized his own had been replaced with a new one that was much too big. Grabbing the hem he pulled it up to show her his bite wound. 

To his shocked surprise it was no long oozing with fresh blood but had actually begun to completely scab over, the edges pulled together in tight knit healing. He looked up at Christina in shock. 

“Was it the dead that bite you?” She asked politely. 

He continued to look at her, dumbfounded. “Yes?” What the hell was going on?

“Negan brought you here,” Why did she keep saying that? After what Carl had done, Negan didn’t kill him when he found him? Why? “Your fever was dangerously high. He said you’d been bitten. He didn’t want to put you down. We strapped you down to let the fever run and kept watch for your turn. But you didn’t turn. The fever got worse and then it got better. Your heart rate went down, blood pressure stabilized. We hooked you up to fluids and you started to heal. Was it the dead that bit you?”

“Yes!” Carl exclaimed, irritated at not being heard and overwhelmed by the onslaught on all this unbelievable information. “Where’s my dad? Where’s Negan?”

“Negan isn’t here. Your dad is gone.”

“My d-dad is...gone?!” He was afraid to ask, and began to panic again, trying to rise from the bed. Negan had done it. Killed Rick. But why hadn’t he killed Carl? 

“We can’t find him. He wasn’t at Alexandria, he’s not at Hilltop, or the Kingdom. He’s gone.”

Carl’s heart, which had sunk to the bottom of his stomach, now slowly began to rise. His dad took off, he wasn’t dead. He abandoned the fight. Maybe Negan wouldn’t compromise. Maybe it had gone too far and there wasn’t any going back. But there was no proof that his dad wasn't alive. 

“Do you think you’re strong enough to stand? It’s normal to feel weak after a fever like the one you had. How do you feel? Do you feel yourself? How is your pain? Can you feel your limbs?”

What kind of questions were these? He didn’t understand why he was being asked them. He was dying. Wasn’t he? Why was he healing and getting better, not worse. Siddiq killed the walker that bit him, and it was a walker, that much of which he was absolutely certain. But why wasn’t he dying? 

At his lack of response to his questions Christina went on, “I know you must be overwhelmed and confused. We are confused too. If indeed it was the dead that bit you. The fever should have killed you. And you would have most certainly turned by now.”

Carl was definitely overwhelmed at this point and beginning to space out a bit, but trying to focus on her words, “We can’t run all the tests that we once could have. We obviously don’t have access to all of the machinery we did before...all of this.” She waved her hand in the air indicating what Carl knew she meant, the walkers and the end of the world. He realized she must have been a doctor, before. 

“We can mostly only speculate at this point until we are able to test a bit more, but if what you’re saying is true Carl, and it was a dead one that bit you,” Carl’s attention focused back on the doctor, was she calling him a liar? Implying that after almost completely growing up in this world that he didn’t know the difference between a dead, rotting walker and an alive, breathing human being? 

Seeing the look on his face she repeated, “If you are remembering correctly and it was the dead that bit you.”

“Yes?” Carl asked, his mind a bit foggy. 

“Carl, you’re immune.”


	4. DUMBASS

The next week went by incredibly fast and also unbearably slow. Carl was really weak from the fever and was trying to regain his strength, but Christina kept wanting to take more blood for him to study. She was devastated she had no real way to analyze it or store it long-term. He objected at first but he felt he owed it to her for saving his life. He stayed in the bed for two days after he woke to find he’d been sleeping for three days, and by the third day after waking he demanded that he be let out of the room. Getting out of bed and reaching for his dad's old sheriff's hat that he had been wearing every day for a few years only to be reminded that it was no longer with him was just another one of the many difficult things to process.

Other than Christina, there were two other people who were also in the medical field once upon a time, an older lady who was once a nurse and a younger man who was in medical school, and what must've been their families. Older people and some kids. The doctors checked in on him often and stayed with him for hours sometimes, questioning him, writing down all of his symptoms and his vitals. He was told he could walk about the house by the 4th day and when he asked if he was being held there he was told no and that he was free to leave, although for some reason it didn’t feel that way. Carl assumed it was because he had no real reason to leave or place to go.

He slept a lot and every time he woke up he was surprised. He kept thinking that he would die and turn at any moment, he was bitten by a walker, he had to. But he didn’t. 

By the 5th day after waking Carl was determined to see Negan, “I know you can radio him, do it.” Every time he asked to speak to him he was told Negan is not home. And he saw no sign of any recognizable Saviors. Savagely he silently hoped they were all dead. Whether by coincidence or because they couldn’t avoid calling him and telling him Carl was awake forever, Negan finally showed up the following morning. 

Carl was ashamed to admit that he was afraid but mainly he just wanted answers. A week must have passed since he’d been bitten by a walker and he knew it was a walker. The doctors’ questions began to make him second guess himself but he knew, without a doubt, that a walker had bitten him. He was certain. He developed all the systems of the virus but for some reason the fever didn’t kill him. It broke and he didn’t die. But he still had questions for Negan and his stomach fluttered with excitement and anticipation when he saw a car pull into the driveway and Negan stepped out. 

“Well looky here!” Negan exclaimed, walking into the house, “Carl! How you doing kid?”

The energy around him was the same, but radically different at the same time. It was weird to see him alone, in this strange house without any Saviors or Lucile, his baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. And without his leather jacket and his hair styled back, he almost seemed to be another person entirely. 

“Where’s my dad?” Carl demanded to know immediately. 

“Come on! You're not at least a little excited to see me?! Still all you care about is Rick and I'm sorry to say I have no idea where he is.” Negan replied, sitting down in a chair opposite the couch Carl was seated on, “How are you feeling, kid?”

Carl wasn’t sure how to feel about this “new” Negan. Hair slightly a mess and in jeans and a black t-shirt, the change oddly made him uneasy. Surely Negan wanted something from him or he would have let him die in the woods. Didn’t Negan want to kill him? 

Unsure of what to say, Carl sat silent for a moment before Negan continued, “I tried to find your dad. Unless someone is hiding him, and trust me, we did a thorough search, he’s not at The Kingdom, or Hilltop. Alexandria’s gone,” he added, although he was sure the doctors had told him this much, “We searched in a hundred mile radius and found no trace of him.”

“He’s just, gone?” Carl asked, surprised at how much hurt could probably be detected in his voice. If Rick thought Carl was dead why would he stick around? Negan wanted Rick dead and he knew it, and anyone who helped Rick hid would be in danger too. If Rick wanted to keep the peace but it was too late to make peace, it made the most sense for him to leave. But for some reason it still stung. 

"He split, kid. And after the shit he pulled, can you blame him?" Negan smirked, his arrogant 'holier than tho' smirk that irritated the hell out of Carl. But still he understood exactly what he meant and why his dad left. The thought settled in after a few moments though and Carl finally felt the impact of what Negan was telling him. His dad was gone. He was alone. He might never find him again. Every time his dad had left him in the past several years he had the worst anxiety, not knowing if or when he would return. But now he wasn't coming back and his dad might never know he was alive, or where he was, or worst of all, that Negan had him. The thought was crushing and he felt as if he couldn't breathe.

"Right. So. I guess I'm leaving." Carl said bluntly, standing up from the couch before he had a panic attack. "Do you know where my shoes are?"

Negan barked out a laugh and although, like his smirk, it irritated Carl, he did see the humor in the question. It has been a week and Carl had been walking around without shoes, even outside the house in the yard trying to feed a stray dog or talk to the other kids or just get fresh air because when he woke up he couldn't find his old clothes or his shoes, and the doctors there didn't know where they were either even though he told them exasperatedly, "I didn't come here naked!"

But apparently he did. Negan had stripped him of everything except for his underwear, in a vain attempt to cool him down. He said he had been mumbling and crying when he found him, in a fever daze, and he took everything off down to his shoes and socks. Embarrassed and feeling his cheeks reddening at the news, he simply nodded and had to stop himself before actually thanking Negan for trying to and possibly succeeding in, saving his life. 

"Your shoes are in the back seat of my car," Negan told him, standing up as well. Carl simply stared at him, confused by his sudden movement. "Well?" Negan asked, heading toward the door, "Let's go?"

Carl began to follow, thinking he was giving him his clothes and shoes back, and if Negan was going to kill him he probably would have already or at least wouldn't care if he was fully clothed or not when he died, so he assumed they would then part ways and Carl's mind began trying to formulate a plan of what to do next, but he still asked, "Where are we going?"

"To find your dad, Dumbass." Negan simply laughed.


	5. BEANS

The first two or three hours driving in the car were incredibly surreal. Carl felt like he was in some sort of alternate reality or universe. Although he had driven in a car with Negan before and even been in his company for hours and even alone with him, something was so different now. Negan was quiet a lot which wasn't something that Carl had ever experienced. He always had something rude to say or an order to give. The last time they were alone together Carl had killed Saviors and Negan had been threatening him, forced Carl to sing to him and take off the bandage covering his then barely healing wound where his eye once was, the result of being shot in the face, and made him cry. So the energy in the air now was a little weird. 

Even weirder was Negan's strange behavior toward Carl, that almost seemed borderline concern. He kept asking how he felt, which Carl shrugged off as awe and confusion about how Carl was still breathing when he'd been bitten by a walker a week ago, but told him if he needed to stop to let him know, offered him unlimited access to the food and water stocked up for the trip in the back seat, provided him with a blanket even though it wasn't cold in the slightest, and told him he could lay down in the back for a nap if he needed rest.

Carl hadn't hesitated jumping in the car after retrieving his old, recently washed and folded clothes from Negan's car, and hiding behind the car to change so Negan couldn't see him, but now he was feeling apprehensive and a little afraid. What was Negan going to do when he found Rick? Kill him? Kill Carl in front of him like he once threatened to do, to teach Rick a lesson? Is that why Negan had kept Carl alive all this time and seemed so concerned for his well-being? 

After a few more hours that were filled with silence, other than the occasional strange question about his physical state, and Negan giving him a very long and detailed status update on the Saviors and the Sanctuary (many Saviors dead, many more abandoned Negan, and the rest scattered throughout the area in different homes and outposts because the Sanctuary is gone, "all thanks to your dear ole' daddy"), Negan began asking Carl more personal things. Where did you live before the world turned to shit? Were you good in school? Favorite subject? Favorite movie? Do you do you do for fun? What was your mom like? Tell me about her? It all seemed too weird and very personal for Carl and once Negan brought up his mom Carl was having difficulty keeping it together. Negan was going to see him cry again over Carl's dead body so he took the opportunity to tell Negan he felt dizzy and wanted to lay down in the backseat. He hoped that Negan couldn't hear him sniffling from the backseat over the car's loud engine, which was no doubt in need of a well overdue tune up. But he could.

Carl dozed off and when the bump and crunch of gravel under the car's tires finally woke him up the sun was setting in the pink sky. Carl sat up and looked around, a small dark cabin was to the left of the car down a long gravel driveway with trees all around. The sunset was so beautiful and the aesthetic of the cabin and woods so relaxing that Carl almost forgot for a split second where he was and what was going on. That is, until Negan's deep voice whispered for him to stay in the car, he was going to check the place out.

Instinctively reaching for his gun Carl remembered with a sinking feeling that he no longer had it. Christina had told him that he didn't have any weapons on him when Negan found him, which Carl knew was bullshit. Negan had it or give it to one of his followers, which stung because it was once his dad's. He was still nervous about being alone with him however, and didn't think the time was right to question him about where it had gone.

Carl was split between the urge to jump in the front seat and take off with the car and all it's backseat supplies, leaving Negan alone in this cabin alone in the dark of night, and experiencing the strange and unwelcome feeling of worry in the pit of his stomach when a few minutes passed and Negan hadn't returned from within the cabin. Carl strained his eye to see the front door of the cabin and finally Negan opened it and waved Carl inside. 

The cabin was completely dark inside, Carl could barely see his hands in front of his face, and he was ashamed to admit he was afraid to be inside without any weapons in the pitch black, as Negan made three trips to and from the car with boxes of food, water and supplies. "Stay right here and stay quiet". Negan had demanded in a stern voice when Carl had said he would help bring everything in. Irritated by Negan's apparent implication that he was unfit, unable to, or in no state to carry a box, Carl rolled his eye. Standing still and silent Carl awaited Negan's instructions on what he should or could do next.

"There's a small bathroom in the back, shower and toilet. Looks like the place has it's own well and water system so we can at least take shits. Shower will be cold though," Negan added, flipping a light switch on with no result showing that with no propane tank outside and no electricity there was therefore no working water heater in the place. 

Negan pushed a couch up against the front door of the cabin, holding his hand up to tell Carl to stop when he stepped forward to help, and Carl felt his emotions start to come undone. His breath caught in his throat and the corner of eye and the bridge of his nose burned with emotion as he thought about the time he and his dad had done the same with another couch and another door in another home that seemed so many years ago. 

He was ashamed and when Negan lit an oil lamp he pulled from one of their supply boxes and put it on the coffee table in the room, Carl looked away to hide the tears in his eye. It was so dark and Carl had been confident that Negan hadn't seen him about to cry, but when he told him he was going to the other room to get Carl a mattress to sleep on ("I'm sleeping on the couch, you look like you're 80 pounds soaking wet, won't stop anything from coming in here") Carl wasn't sure if he had imagined the look of sympathy on Negan's face, and was both embarrassed and surprised by it.

The cabin was oddly cold for an early fall night and as Carl settled down on the mattress, he wrapped his arms around himself and Negan noticed him shivering. He pulled a small, thin blanket out of one of their boxes on the floor and threw it in Carl's direction, "Sorry kid, it's all we got."

Negan popped open a can of black beans and handed it to Carl. Cold and gross, Carl ate half of the can in a few bites and handed it back to Negan, who looked stunned and ate the other half of the can, he obviously thought Carl was going to eat them all himself. They ate in silence and Negan gave Carl a box of raisins and an old dirty bottle of water. Drinking it Carl cringed, almost laughing at loud at how ironically he'd been spoiled in this world by the filtered water that was running at Alexandria. 

Negan left to go to the bathroom and upon returning told Carl not to flush unless he had to go number two, as to not drawn any unwanted attention from the noise just in case. Carl nodded to say he understood and laid down on the mattress, his entire body shivering now as he could feel all of the emotions he'd been pushing down and suppressing start to surface. 

'Don't do this. Don't do this.' Carl told himself, the thought of losing control of his emotions due to his weakness making him even more susceptible of losing control. He took a deep breath that he knew was loud and shaky and he hated himself for it. Was he really going to cry himself to sleep in front of the man who killed his friends, threatened to kill him, his dad, burned his house to the ground? Yep. The tears started to flow and before he knew it, he was crying so hard it was difficult to stay as quiet as possible and still breath.

He thought about his mom, her voice, her smell that seemed to be so present a week ago. Judith, her giggle, her smile, her sweet, soft curls. And his dad, his hands, how rough they were, how strong his arms felt about Carl, even though Carl was fifteen now and no longer a little boy, he still craved the feel of his father's strong arms around him, the way he would hold him, then pull back, hold a hand on the back of Carl's head, fingers woven in his long hair and say, "I love you, Son."

\---

Carl wasn't sure if it was the sound of the floor groaning under heavy feet or his discomfort and the sweating despite the cold air in the cabin that woke him up. Negan was making his way to the bathroom and Carl rolled onto his side, letting out a whimper. A wave of nausea washed over him and he retched over the side of the mattress, almost throwing up. Gasping for air he rolled back onto his back, breathing heavily and his heart beating fast. 

“Carl?!” Negan rushed into the room and knelt down onto the mattress next to Carl’s head. 

“I’m fine. Go away.” Carl groaned, annoyed. His head was pounding and he just wanted to go back to sleep. 

Negan ignored him and pushed Carl’s hair back, putting a palm on his forehead. It was hot and covered in sweat, Negan jumped up and began rummaging through the boxes for a small bottle of pills, Carl thought it must be acetaminophen or ibuprofen but didn’t ask, only took them and swallowed a few with the water from the dirty bottle that he had left. “Are you okay? Are you going to throw up? Talk to me. What’s going on?” Negan reached for Carl’s shirt, wanting to lift it to check his wound. 

“Stop,” Carl said firmly, pushing Negan's hands away, “And stop interrogating me. I’m fine.” He had the urge to laugh but was almost instantly after overwhelmed by sadness, he used to say the same thing to his dad, the former sheriff. 

“Are you throwing up? Carl. Talk to me. Are you hurting?” Even in the dark Carl could see that there was unexpected worry on Negan’s face. 

“Negan.” Carl groaned. Annoyed but worried about his fever returning. Was it going to get bad again? Was he going to finally die now? 

Negan sat back and watched Carl’s breathing slow and return to normal, before swinging his legs around and stretching his feet out on the mattress. 

“Really?” Carl asked incredulously, amused despite his nausea, “I thought you were blocking the door with your weight?” 

Negan mumbled something about the couch being uncomfortable and snatched the pillow off of the couch, laying back. Carl smiled.


	6. HELIUM

The next morning Carl vomited up the beans and raisins from the night before and Negan forced him to let him look at his wound. It was still healing, dry and didn’t look infected, but Negan was still worried. He told Carl several times there must have been something in the water, so many times Carl was pretty sure that Negan was just trying to convince himself that’s what happened even though he was scared it was something worse, which Carl found to be yet another very odd thing to add to the list of odd things happening lately. 

His head was spinning again and although he didn’t object to staying at the cabin for at least another day when he really wanted to go back out and look for his dad, something was different this time and he wasn’t afraid he was dying, in fact he almost knew he wasn’t. So it was amusing and confusing to watch Negan fuss over him the entire day and well into the night. 

The following morning they hit the road again and drove at least a hundred more miles, stopped at countless gas stations to look for fuel and food, and Negan searched a few houses and a large storage unit to look for supplies. It was always uncomfortably comforting for Carl when he saw him emerge unscathed from the buildings and every time he tried to convince himself that it was the prospect of being all alone that scared him so much. They slept in the car most nights or in houses if they happened to be in the area at the right time of night. Carl didn't like sleeping in the car, no matter how many times it happened, walkers waking him up banging on the windows always scared him half to death, and put in him a bad mood for hours. Carl felt better and stronger every day and his fever hadn't returned. Approaching two weeks on the road and letting his loneliness and longing for his family get the better of him, Carl decided to let his guard down and make the best of the situation, letting Negan in a little bit even though it made him feel guilty at first. He started to laugh at his jokes, stopped rolling his eye in response when Negan was being overbearing or controlling, almost protective, and although Negan turned out to actually be a really good listener, Carl started asking Negan questions of his own. He learned that Negan was actually from Virginia so he hadn't strayed far and he coached high school basketball. Before Lucile was a barbed wire bat that Negan used as a killing machine, she was his wife and she died of cancer. Carl felt like all of this was from another lifetime; there was no way Negan sold cars for a living and played ping pong. There was something strange and unnerving and even charming about seeing Negan wake up in the morning with bedhead, hearing his genuine laugh, or seeing his gentleness. It was unsettling to really experience Negan’s humanity. 

Carl was in one of his moods as Negan pulled off of the highway and found a subdivision to search for an empty house to stop for the night in. At this point Negan could tell when Carl was thinking too much or upset or wanted to be left alone and he would give him his space. This night he wanted to push him a bit and decided to crack a joke, "Hey Carl, I quit my job at the helium factory today." Carl was silent for a moment before snapping out of it and looking at Negan, asking very seriously, "What are you talking about?"

"I refused to be spoken to in that tone of voice." Negan waited for the words to sink it and expected a giggle but was pleasantly surprised that Carl burst out laughing. He didn't think it was that funny but Carl thought it was hilarious considering the world they lived in now. He thought about the normalcy of the situation in which you'd even need helium and that there would probably never be a need for balloons at a birthday party again. This devastating thought coupled with the thought of Negan working in a factory under any circumstance was tragically hilarious. Negan had watched Carl stare off into space and listened to him try to quietly cry himself to sleep at night more times than he could count, and so he beamed with pride at being able to make him laugh and smile, even for a few minutes.

As they pulled into the last house in the subdivision Carl couldn't help but feel uneasy, exposed here. Carl didn't like feeling so out in the open, even if it was the house furthest from the main streets. But Negan didn't seem bothered by it, and headed into the house to check it out, Carl right on his heels. A few days prior, Negan had given Carl a hunting knife to keep strapped on his thigh after a walker grabbed Carl from behind at a pharmacy they had stopped to search. Negan joked and told Carl he was giving him the knife because the walker almost scared him into a heart attack, but the truth was the fear did cause his heart to beat faster than he remembered in a long time. He had shoved the walker back off of Carl before driving the same knife into its skull and grabbing Carl off of the floor with more force than he intended, picking him up to his feet, shaking him and asking if he was okay, almost screaming in his face. The truth was the thought of Carl being bitten again terrified him for some reason. Who knows if he was really immune or what might happen if a walker were to bite him again. He pulled the knife out of the walker and headed it directly to Carl, telling him to keep it.

They made sure the house was clear and then headed in for the night. The door had been locked and Negan broke in by breaking a window pane in the door and reaching through to unlock it. The house was clean with everything intact, canned foods, flashlights, clothes, lighters, tools, knives, batteries, and even thick blankets that Negan teased Carl's "skinny ass" would need for the coming winter. It was surreal to come upon a place that hadn't been touched since the dead started walking. Negan was especially excited to find a box of gauze, pads, and elastic bandages in the bathroom. He had noticed Carl trying to hide his face after washing his bandages in the sink at a gas station and waiting for them to dry so he could wrap his scars back up.

Since they had mostly been sleeping in the car, small houses, or run down hotels since being on the road they had been sleeping in the same room, but this house was huge. And Carl wondered if they'd sleep in their own beds in separate rooms tonight. That unasked question was answered for him when Negan pulled the bedspread off of a blanket in another room and brought it to the spare, saying that it was their lucky day since Carl was "a blanket hog". 

Since the night in the cabin when Carl had gotten ill they hadn't slept in the same bed, just the same room. Some nights Negan even slept on the floor near the bed or in a chair, even if the bed was big enough for the two of them. Carl wondered why but didn't ask. 

That night Carl had a nightmare about Judith and woke up screaming, crying, and shaking. She'd been across the water from him at a small river, surrounded by walkers who were slowly closing in around her. He got in the calm water to swim across to her and suddenly the water started flowing rapidly, the current carrying him away as the walkers grabbed onto and fed on his little sister.

"Carl!" Negan grabbed and held onto Carl's arms, attempting to hold him down the best he could while he was thrashing around. Carl yelled out, opened his eye, saw Negan, whispered his sister's name and immediately began to sob. He hadn't spent enough time with her, with any of them. He should have read the book one more time, played the board game one more time, drew one more picture, carried her more when her feet were tired, danced with her for another song. He was filled with regret and sorrow and without needing to explain, Negan understood. He simply nodded and pulled Carl to his chest, letting him cry as long as he need to without saying a word, just holding him tight. In the moment Carl didn't think about how weird it was considering who they both where, it just felt right and it felt good.

The next morning Carl blushed when the memory of the nightmare and what followed entered his mind after Negan shook him awake, telling him it was time to hit the road. Negan didn't mention what happened and Carl was grateful because he didn't want to talk about it either.


	7. CLAIMED

Another two or three weeks had gone by, Carl had lost count of the days, before the came upon a major blockage in the highway and Negan suggested they headed back to base to stock back up and maybe head in another direction. He hadn't mentioned to Carl that the chances of finding Rick after all this time were slim to none, but he knew Carl was smart and that he didn't really have to. Carl agreed that they head back. He hadn't given up hope of finding his dad, Michonne, and Judith, but he if he was anything it was a realist.

He wondered if his dad would come back and try to kill Negan and he wondered what would happen if Negan found Rick. But more than anything now he wondered if there was one scenario he would prefer over the other and if he'd be okay with the outcome either way and he knew he wouldn't. Could what happened be so far in the past that they'd forgive each other? Could Rick see all that Negan had done for Carl and wipe the slate clean? He didn't know if he really believed they could all live together happily ever after but he strangely found himself thinking he wouldn't be okay if the outcome was that they couldn't. He was ashamed to admit the thought of never seeing Negan again if they found Rick would crush him, because he knew that after everything Negan had done to their family and friends and to Rick himself, Rick would feel betrayed if he knew how close they'd become. The Negan he knew was nothing like the Negan they had known. Funny and warm, caring and almost kind. Instead of a leather jacket and barbed wire baseball bat (in passing he told Carl he never had the chance to moan his wife, and that he'd buried the baseball bat in a field of flowers), he had an over-sized gray hooded sweatshirt and a hunting knife. 

Even though they hadn't seen another living person in the weeks they'd been on the road, every place they stopped Carl looked for any sign of Rick, Michonne, Judith or any member of their group from before. Any toys out of place he wondered if they were Judith's left behind, any place that someone had recently been before he wondered if it was his dad. He found paper and pens at a house and started leaving notes everywhere, telling his dad the address nearest to where Negan's new place was just in case he came back. He didn't have a lot of faith than he would, but he had to do it anyway. One morning before they left he saw Negan drawing a little map of crossroads on the bottom of Carl's note, and he was surprised at how much it seemed to make his heart swell.

Back on the road they had a breakfast of expired, stale granola bars and Carl was being quiet so Negan took the time to apologize for something he'd done a long time ago that among many of the things he'd done, had been eating away at him.

"Do you remember the day you sneaked into Sanctuary and killed my men?" He asked, nonchalantly. 

"Um. Yes." Carl responded, apprehensively. How could he have forgotten that and why would Negan be bringing it up now? 

"I'm sorry. For what I said that day. And for making you cry." He waited for Carl to respond and when he didn't, Negan continued, "I hope you know you don't have to cover your face on account of me. It doesn't bother me. I meant it when I said it made you look badass. You're still adorable."

Usually looking at or talking about his scars made him uncomfortable and knowing he only had one eye made him self-conscious but Negan's apology and words made him smile. Negan took his smile and nod as acceptance of his apology. 

When they arrived back at the same cabin they'd been in that first night on the road so many weeks ago, the sun was rising instead of setting but it was still just as beautiful and Carl was excited to be staying somewhere that was familiar to him. He stepped out into the cold morning air and just as he shivered, almost as if on cue, Negan threw his hooded sweatshirt over to him, “Put it on," he demanded. 

As he pulled it over his head he was feeling particularly brave and Negan's apology got him thinking, so Carl thought he'd finally ask Negan what he planned to do if they found Rick.

"Are you still looking for apologies and punishment?"

"What?" Negan asked, pulling a box out of the car so they could make breakfast on the cabin's gas stove.

"When we find my dad? Are you going to punish him? For what he did, before?" Carl immediately regretted asking, and wished he hadn't as soon as the words left his mouth.

Negan stopped halfway between the cabin and the car, heart racing. Carl would've sworn he could feel the heat of anger glowing on him, "That's what you think? After all of this? You still think I'm him? I'm the same man I was before?" He tried to stay calm, but it wasn't working.

"No, I mean yes, I just thought..." Carl began, not sure where to go with this now.

"You think I'm out here looking for your dad so I can kill you in front of him?! Don't you?! Everything I've done for you I did just to get off watching him watch you die at my hands?! And you are just playing along, so when the times comes that we do find him, if he's not dead or long gone, you and him can kill me together, is that it?!" He turned and began to stomp away, quickly and with each step fueling his anger.

"Negan!" Carl tried to reason with him, but he wasn't sure there was much of a point. He was obviously wrong in thinking Negan still wanted retribution for what Rick had done, maybe now he wanted nothing from him at all. And in asking it was obvious that Carl had hurt his feelings, which he both regretted and absolutely adored.

Things were quiet most of the day and well into the night. Carl thought he could tell Negan was still angry with him but Negan was actually upset that Carl couldn't see beyond who he used to be, couldn't see that maybe he'd changed. Over the last few months his affection for the boy had grown so much, and he always liked the kid. He thought the feelings had been the same. Carl seemed to trust him more, and they were almost taking care of each other now, having been just the two of them alone for so many weeks. He was sad about it and being sad about it irritated him because it was unlike who he used to be, or at least pretended to be for so long. He knew he was being unfairly cold toward Carl who was only worried about what might happen to his father, but he was having difficulty shaking how much his words hurt him. 

Since they'd be driving most of the previous night they decided to stay one night in the cabin and Negan headed out the car to bring supplies in. The temperature was rapidly declining and the chill of early winter had begun to creep into the night air. Sighing sadly, Negan grabbed a box from the back seat and made sure to bring in the thick blanket he'd taken for Carl so he wouldn't be cold tonight. He knew he needed to say sorry for how angry he'd gotten and how cold he'd been toward Carl the rest of the day.

Carl went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, pulling Negan’s hoodie off over his head and looked sadly at the toothbrush Negan had found and given to him a few weeks prior. Brushing his teeth he decided to make it right and do whatever it took to apologize to Negan for assuming he still wanted to get revenge on him or his dad and to convince him that this wasn't really how he felt about him.

He was rinsing the toothbrush when he heard something from outside that almost sounded like a yell. Panicking, he dropped it and ran to the door of the cabin, expecting to see Negan walking back to the house with a box or bag, having imagined the noise he heard or having been startled by a walker that he'd now put down, himself unharmed.

But he hadn't imagine it. Negan was standing between the car and the cabin, a man behind him with an arm around his neck, holding a knife to his throat. The car door open and one of their boxes of supplies on the ground, items scattered while two more men gathered them up, shouting something that Carl was too in shock to hear. Another man holding up his blanket, and he could see at least one more in the back seat of the car. They were grossly outnumbered but still Carl instinctively reached down to his thigh for his knife.

"Carl!" Negan screamed upon seeing Carl step outside, and tried to pull away from the man behind him, but the man pushed the knife harder into his throat and Negan gasped and stilled himself.

Suddenly, Carl felt a hand grab him harshly by the hair on the back of his head, yanking his head back painfully and he cried out. His hands reaching up to try and pry the hands off of him, the man pulled Carl's knife from his thigh with the other hand, and pulled Carl's hair harder, his head snapping back and he looked up at the man assaulting him. Much larger than Carl, a man at least 10 years old, with dark blonde hair, and wearing a black jacket, his face was covered by facial hair and was dirty and his breath smelled as he leaned close to Carl's face and in a deep, raspy voice that chilled Carl to the bone he snarled, "Hey, Gorgeous."


	8. PRETTY

Carl wanted to scream but a lump rose in his throat and he couldn't speak and was frozen in fear. Someone holding him by the hair and having unarmed him was making him feel impossibly pathetic, helpless, and afraid. He couldn't get to Negan to help him and was even more terrified by the knife being held at Negan's throat.

The man behind him tightened his grip on his hair, causing Carl to whine in pain. He knew what Negan was capable of, how strong he was, but there was no way they could get out of this. A warm and paralyzing fear was spreading out from the pit of Carl's stomach to his entire body, numbing him.

"What do we have here boys?" The man holding onto Carl's hair asking the men in the driveway as one approached him and Carl with a knife held out in front of him. Carl squeezed his eye shut, waiting for him to drive the knife into him and the pain to come. But he didn't, he walked past him and into the cabin, and Carl heard him rummaging through Negan and Carl's belongings and shouting at each other. The other man pulled Carl in close by his hair and right into his ear whispered, "Is that your daddy?"

This time Carl found his voice screaming, “Get off me!” and reached up to punch in the direction of the man’s face. 

“Woah now!” The man yelled, leaning back but keeping a firm grip on Carl’s hair, and Carl thought for sure he was going to tear it from his scalp. “Calm down young man! No one’s going to hurt you. Unless you make us.” He warned. 

Carl stared straight ahead at Negan, fear coursing through him. After everything that had happened to Carl until now, everything he’d been through, he didn’t think he would live through this. How had they managed to sneak up on them? There had been no sound or sight of anyone the entire time Carl and Negan had been on the road. 

“What do you want?” Negan growled. “Let him go.” He said sternly, a demand he couldn’t possibly believe would be met. 

“Now now.” The man said calmly and it was almost as if he could read Carl’s mind, “Do you really think you’re in the position to be making demands?”

Tears welled up in Carl’s eye, a result of the pain in his head and although he wouldn’t admit it, the fear at being captured and undeniably cornered with no way out. 

Another one of the men walked up onto the porch and dipped a finger under the bandage across Carl’s forehead, “What’s this?” He asked, pulling it up. 

“Get your hands off him!” Negan screamed and Carl jumped, pulling his hands up to push the second man away. He and the man holding Carl both laughed and each one grabbed one of Carl’s wrists, pulling his hands down and the second man swiftly pulling his bandage up off his face to rest on top of his head. 

“Jesus Christ!” He exclaimed when he saw his scars, “you can have him John.” And with that he walked into the cabin behind them. 

“What?” The man named John questioned, pulling Carl around to look at his face, “Oh that’s just fine.” He began, before continuing quietly into Carl’s ear, “That’s not the hole of yours I’ll be concerning myself with.”

Carl felt his insides turn to ice and though not entirely sure what he meant, the fear of what John had said was paralyzing him again. Negan must have heard him because he started struggling with the man behind him in the driveway and it happened so fast. Carl heard yelling and by the time he’d looked up Negan had been smashed over the head and fell to his knees and then over sideways. 

“Negan!” Carl yelled, a sob catching in his throat. He needed to look away even though he felt like he couldn’t. He didn’t know if he could see this. Watch the man who had taken care of him for the past month die. Cruelly ironic considering the friends’ lives that he’d watched Negan take but Negan was all he had now and he wasn’t ready to lose him. He couldn’t lose him. 

“Stop!” He screamed, as the two men remaining outside started to circle around Negan on the ground. Carl was pretty sure he was unconscious if not dead and couldn’t let them beat him to death, “Please!”

“The young man asked nicely!” John yelled, stilling his men. "Leave him. Let him wake up and wonder where his pretty little boy's gone off too." John was obviously in charge of this group. The men who began circling Negan huffed and one headed toward the cabin while John instructed the other search Negan for the car keys. 

The paralyzing fear had crept its way back up Carl, prickling in his spine as John pushed him down the porch steps and toward the car. 

“Stay. Put.” He warned, hand still gripped tightly into his hair. He swung a backpack off his back and began to rummage through it with some difficulty with one hand. He found what he was looking for and pulled it out; a bundle of thick zip-ties bound with a rubber band. He pulled one free with his teeth before grabbing Carl by the wrist, yanking him forward, pulling the back door open and attempting to zip-tie his wrist to the inside of the back door. 

As soon as John released his grip on Carl’s hair he tried to push him away, the fear of what was about to happen overcoming him and causing his flight mode to take over. John reached up and with his fist tightly closed, punched Carl directly across the side of his head near his temple, his still overly sensitive damaged nerves from the gunshot wound causing his face to feel like it had been lit on fire. He gasped and pulled his hand to his face, tears freely falling from his eye now, as weakness took over and John shoved him down in the back seat, pulling his arm out and zip-tying his wrist to the door. 

Surrendering, feeling defeated, and a crippling panic beginning to wash over him, Carl let out a low sob. That didn’t go how he thought it would. It happened so fast, but he planned on fighting so hard even if it meant he died in the process but he was overpowered so fast and so easily and the sick reality of his dad not having been there when he always had been shattered Carl. 

John left the car to go into the cabin and Carl tried to lean out of the car to see if Negan was breathing. His head was pounding and his vision was blurry, it was hard to see if he was or not. He wasn’t moving and didn’t respond when quietly Carl pitifully called his name. 

John and the men started coming out of the house and Carl continued to panic internally. Wherever they were going they planned on taking the car and Carl with them, stranding Negan a hundred miles from home all alone so if he wasn’t dead already he would be soon. Fear and dread was consuming him and Carl began to shake. What would a group of five men want with an unarmed teenager? Aside from the supplies Carl literally had nothing and they didn’t know how good a fighter he could be or how strong he was. The words that John had said into his hear had Carl's entire body shivering. 

When they loaded up the car and three men piled in, John behind the wheel, and the other men headed toward the car they had stashed in a wooded driveway a few cabins down that Negan and Carl somehow failed to hear, Carl’s heart felt like it would pound out of his chest, blood rushing in his ears. He didn’t even try to stay strong or pretend to be, didn’t try to stop his tears from falling as they pulled down the long gravel driveway, the sight of Negan’s lifeless body fading away into the distance.


	9. ADRIFT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault. Please consider yourself warned and skip to the next chapter if you need to.

The sun was completely down now, darkness surrounding the car, the road completely black up ahead. Carl’s entire body shivered with fear and the cold of what was surely the beginning of winter. Eye burning, he had stopped wiping his tears away hours ago, his eye swollen and his cheek raw. 

The men in the car had argued and bantered among themselves and hadn’t said much to Carl at all for hours. When they pulled up to a gas station that Carl and Negan had searched weeks before he knew they wouldn’t find much but didn’t say anything. 

John remained seated in the front seat while they other men looked around. He was obviously a variant of the former Negan himself. In charge. The boss. 

That’s why when he finally spoke to Carl, Carl felt like he had to answer. 

“What’s your name?” John said, turning sideways in the front seat to face Carl, in the back seat opposite him. 

“Carl.” He said simply and plainly. 

“Nice to meet you Carl,” John replied in a mocking tone. “How old are you?” 

“Fifteen.” Carl said, short and to the point again. He had no interest in having a conversation with a man who for all intents and purposes just kidnapped him. 

John could tell and he let out a short laugh, “Not a talker. Noted.” And he turned back to face the front of the car. “You don’t have to talk but if you’re smart you’ll still listen. Pay attention. Do what I say." 

Carl heard what he was saying but wasn’t sure if he was in shock because he was having trouble processing what was being said to him. 

“Do you understand?” John asked slowly, “Do as I say and we’ll have no problems.”

Carl was having an internal struggle, unsure of whether or not he should speak, but in the end decided he should. “Why are you doing this? Where are we going?”

“Why is anyone doing anything anymore? Why the hell not! Where is anyone going anymore? Wherever we can find, Carl.” His response was mocking in tone again, his ego shining through. 

Carl decided he didn’t have anything else to ask or say. John’s voice pissed him off and made him sick to his stomach and he wished he could just get away from him. 

He jumped when the men came back to the car and open of them opened the back door, startling him. The man laughed and scooted sideways onto the seat next to Carl, “Didn’t mean to scare you pretty thing.”

“Dan.” John said firmly from the driver’s seat, “Come sit up here with me.”

“What?! Dammit, why?” He questioned but made his way back out of the seat and the car. Dan’s comments made Carl uncomfortable and his skin was crawling. He felt like he was being preyed upon and was thankful when John summoned Dan up front. 

“Because I fuckin’ said so. He’s mine and I didn’t give permission for you to speak to him. So don’t and don’t touch him.” John barked back. 

“That’s bullshit John. We all want a pretty thing. Your mama never taught you to share?” Dan slammed the front door of the car and John simply let out a short laugh. It was clear that none of these men ever really challenged John or his rules. Dan’s comment still made Carl uneasy. Carl was a person. He couldn’t be owned by anyone. 

When they pulled up to a roadside motel that had been run down and broke into several times with broken windows and doors, he was shocked when John cut his wrist loose from the car, zip-tied his hands behind his back and shoved him into one of the rooms with a working door. The way he was pushing him around and handling him made Carl feel like he was being owned and out of fear of what could come next he didn’t say anything.

What came next did come and Carl could never have possibly been ready for it. 

John groaned and dropped his backpack down on the floor in the room and pushed a desk against the door just in case. The door’s lock was still intact on this room and the window not broken but the beds had been stripped of blankets and one of the mattresses was missing. It made Carl sadly think of all the times Negan pulled a mattress off of a bed to allow he and Carl to sleep in the same room. 

“Long day,” John began, taking off his boots. The casual manner of which John was talking seemed unnatural to Carl but in case they every had to run in the night, Carl was used to sleeping in his shoes, mismatched from losing one so long ago and still having not found a pair to properly fit him. He had once noticed Negan rifling through any shoes they found everywhere they went, after asking Carl what size he wore in passing. But they never found his size. 

Carl was brought back to reality from his thoughts by John pushing his way past him into the bathroom, pulling his pants down and taking them off. Standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, Carl looked away when John peed, and then he walked back into the room. 

“You want to know why I’m doing this?” John said dangerously as he approached Carl after a few moments of silence, “Where we’re going?” He reached down and in one motion put his hand under the hem of Carl’s shirt and grabbed the waistband of his pants, pulling him forward, “Let me show you.”

Carl swallowed loudly and whined when John pulled him forward, head swimming. This felt weird and disturbing and wrong and he was afraid. Even now he wasn’t sure of what was really happening, having never had any experience before. John pulled him forward and grabbed the front of his jeans roughly, going to undo a button. Carl tried to step back, unable to push him away due to his hands restrained behind his back. 

“Hey now. I’d be lying if I said a little struggle didn't excite me. But don’t get any ideas.” John warned darkly, “With that scar you’re not that pretty, I won’t hesitate to blow that other eye out.” 

Carl was no stranger to threats but for some reason John’s warning chilled him to the bone. His spine prickled and his stomach lunged, bile rising up in throat. He had lost everything important to him and everyone he loved and he wasn't ready to lose this. But in this moment he was even more afraid to die. 

John pulled his own shirt over his head and undid Carl’s jeans and pushed them down his thighs in one motion, pushing him backward and toward the bed that still had a mattress. He gasped as his feet went out under him unexpectedly and he landed hard on his bound hands behind his back. 

John pulled his own underwear off and Carl looked away, terrified. The moonlight shining into the hotel room was enough light to see John's face and his body and his hands and he didn’t want to see what his hands were doing next but he could hear him spit and then the slapping of his hand against himself. 

After stroking himself for a few moments, he roughly reached for Carl to flip him over onto his stomach. Carl panicked and tried to sit up, to yell, to scream and cry but his fear was paralyzing again. 

“That’s it,” John said quietly and in a gross, approving, and almost loving way when he’d managed to flip Carl over and was holding him down, panting but no longer struggling. In a split second he got off the bed and returned with his knife, cutting Carl's hands free. Carl immediately pulled them around him and to his chest, his shoulders aching.

"Remember, don't get any ideas now," John warned and reached for the waistband of Carl’s underwear, finally causing Carl to suddenly start sobbing and pleading. 

“Please. Don’t do this. Please. Just let me go. I’ll do anything. Anything else, please. Please.” He begged, John holding him down tightly and shoving the side of his face into the rough mattress. 

“You can beg. You can cry. You can even scream if you want to but no one’s coming for you except me.” John said grossly, pulling Carl’s underwear down off of his butt and past his thighs, putting a knee between Carl's legs to spread them. Carl was flooded with shame and his already trembling body began to shiver uncontrollably and he started squirming again, panicking, and sobbing loudly. Trying to twist away from the weight of John's body pinning him down, Carl cried out when John squeezed his hips in a binding grip, nails cutting and fingers bruising Carl's delicate skin there. He knew he couldn't do this but he didn't know how to stop it, fear flooding him and overloading every one of his senses. He couldn't see straight, couldn't hear clearly, and was sure he would start hyperventilating.

John spread his cheeks and Carl felt a wetness there, before something warm, hard, and invading was pressed against him. He couldn't catch his breath but held it, waiting for the pain to come. And it did. 

John thrust into him, breaching his ring of muscle and causing a fiery, burning pain to spread throughout Carl's backside, and then unexpectedly and immediately pulled almost completely back out. Carl thought he was going to let out a bloodcurdling scream but instead let out a quiet squeal and a whine that he couldn't control as he tried to grab onto the mattress and get away. It felt as if all the air had been punched out of his lungs and his trembling became almost violent, the pain and burning pressure felt as if he was being torn apart, white hot and blurring his vision.

John thrust back into him, causing Carl to loudly cry out again, and he could feel his body going into shock, his muscles relaxing due to giving away, and he settled into the bed. Tears pouring out of his eye and sweat down his forehead, he pressed his face into the mattress, crying freely.

"Please stop." He begged, unsure if John could hear him or not. He pulled out of him and thrust back in, saying something that Carl couldn't hear through the ringing of his ears and Carl let out another whine.

A few more moments went by and John didn't stop, and eventually Carl stopped crying with each thrust as his body went completely numb. He turned his head to the side and stared at the wall blankly, shock completely settling into him. It was only a minute or two more before John thrust deeply into Carl, reached beneath him and held him tight to him by the inner thigh for a moment, groaned, and climbed off of him, panting lightly.

Carl was still in shock and didn't move but was suddenly overcome with nausea and almost throw up on the bed. John heard him gagging and as he put his pants back on he threatened him to "do that shit in the toilet or you're sleeping tied up outside", prompting another wave of sobbing from Carl. 


	10. PRINCIPLES

After the dead began walking and came back to life, Carl had been shot in the stomach accidentally. Some of the shards were dug out of him without anesthetic while he was awake. He was shot in the face, losing an eye and leaving an open wound that took months to properly heal. And then he was bitten by a walker, leaving him with a fever and unbelievable pain throughout his entire body.

He thought he’d lost his father and then he lost his mother, having been the one to kill her as she lay bleeding to death after his sister was born via c-section. Losing friends and family and hope still didn’t break him.

But none of that pain was anything compared to this. The pain of being violated in the worst possible way. The one part of himself that he was supposed to share with someone when he was ready, someone he chose, being stolen away from him. The emotional pain of losing that piece of him was more painful than he ever could've imagined and never thought he'd have to. The feeling of being broken, owned, and used that Carl now carried with him was shattering and felt so heavy. The most experience he ever had was kissing Enid. And although he had sometimes wanted to do more, it had never happened. Rick had told Carl that he wasn't never safe, no matter what he thought, but they never had a conversation about what to do in an experience like this. He was in over his head and felt like he knew nothing at all. His mother told him he was going to beat this world. That he was brave. He was good. Smart. Strong. But now he knew that wasn't true. Nothing made him feel more small.

John ended up pushing the bed against the door to keep walkers out or to keep Carl in, he wasn't sure and wasn't in the condition to ask or even care. The stress of what happened to him was so enormous on his mind and body that after crying until he was so numb he could no longer feel anything, it helped him to eventually drift off to sleep.

The following morning he woke to pee and a fiery explosion erupted in his backside and all of his muscles ached and cramped painfully when he moved. He gasped and went still, tears threatening to start falling again but he pushed them back, holding still and breathing shallow. While he lay there with a plan of escape formulating in his head, John woke with a start and headed to the bathroom without saying a word to Carl. He could hear him cleaning himself up before he came out, finished getting dressed and put his boots back on, picking up his backpack and telling Carl to get out of the bed so he could move it.

"We're leaving, you have two minutes to piss and get dressed." John said abruptly, nudging Carl roughly to get up. The pain erupted again and when he tried to stand he almost fell, his legs like jelly and his backside in unimaginable pain. He swayed for a minute before going into the bathroom and almost throwing up at the sight of himself. He had dried blood down his thighs and trying to clean it off with only his wet hand from the sink was uncomfortable and painful. The metallic smell of the blood causing his stomach to churn his hands began to shake. There was no towel and the bathroom was cold, he was shivering with emotions, pain, and cold. He finished cleaning himself off the best he could and washed his hands, watching the brown and red streaks of blood go down the drain of he sink. Looking up at himself in the mirror he felt he looked so different in ways he couldn't begin to try and describe and was afraid he'd never look at himself the same again. With shaking hands he tried to straighten the bandage over his eye the best he could, it had been pushed up and tangled in his hair last night. His hair a mess, matted and tangled, he tried to smooth it down, and he tried to wash his face, his eye swollen and red.

He pulled his stained underwear back up over his wet thighs and butt and slowly came out of the bathroom to find his pants. He noticed the mattress of the bed was covered in his blood and it caused a wave of nausea to wash over him again. As he gingerly put them on he saw that John was already out of the room and waiting in the car with a few of the other men. Carl saw this as an opportunity to run, but could barely walk and couldn't even bear the pain of trying to put his shoes on and so with his head hung low and fighting back the tears threatening to fall again he walked out of the motel room barefoot with shoes and dirty socks in hand. The cold air of the early winter morning hit him and took his breath away, distracting him slightly from the pain as he slowly opened the back seat of the car.

"No." John said firmly, just as Carl was about to painfully try to sit down, "Up front." He said plainly and simply, "And hurry up."

The ride was quiet and uncomfortable and every bump in the road caused Carl to tense up and wince with pain. He knew John noticed and Carl noticed that he didn't care. At lunch time Carl's stomach was growling loudly and John finally seemed to notice him and threw a package of dried blueberries, a Gatorade, and a bottle of painkillers into his lap, prompting another hiss of pain. They drove the entire day and into the night before the car ran out of gas and they stopped at a house right off the road, windows broken with a handful of walkers inside. The men killed the walkers while John gathered his things up in the car and Carl dreaded the act of standing up again. Having nothing to gather up except for his shoes which he still hadn't put on, Carl immediately got out of the car and headed toward the house.

It was dark, cold, and smelled from the walkers who had just been killed and drug outside. The smell made Carl's head spin and his stomach churn, he was sure he was going to be sick. John roughly pushed him down in the only chair that wasn't broken at a small table, overwhelming him and prompting another cry of pain from Carl.

"Fuck!" he mumbled under his breath, pissed off by and unsure of why John had to be so rough and why he had to constantly put his hands on him.

"Excuse me?" John said sharply, "I don't think I heard that correctly, what did you say?"

"Nothing." Carl said quickly, fear rising in his stomach once again, immediately feeling the need to explain himself to prevent John from becoming angry, "I would've sat down here if you'd asked me to. I've done everything you asked."

Carl wasn't prepared for what happened next. John swung his fist forward, hitting Carl's face full force in the same spot as he had the night at the cabin, causing the same explosion of debilitating pain in his damaged nerves. 

He fell backwards off of the chair and into the floor, crying out in pain. Tears sprung to his eyes and he was shamefully aware of everyone in the room watching him. Embarrassed, he tried to stand, when John lifted a foot his chest, forcefully shoving him back down to the floor, boot painfully crushing his chest.

"I sat your ungrateful ass down at this table to feed you a meal before my boys had their chance to pick through the food we have left. But you seem to think I should've asked you nicely to please sit your ass down. I should have been more polite with you?" John sneered, lifting his foot from Carl's chest, leaving his heart pounding as hard as his head, panting.

"Maybe my boys will be more polite with you." He said threateningly, waving his hand from the men in the room to Carl on the floor, "Is that what you want, Carl? Well then, have at him boys."

Carl's eye and mouth widened, he wasn't positive but was pretty sure what John meant by what he said, and as Dan exclaimed "Really?!" and John began to make his way out of the room and down the hall Carl cried out his name.

"John!"

"Yes?" He turned and held his hand up to stop Dan from advancing on Carl.

"Please. Don't, don't let them, don't leave me." Carl begged, face burning with shame and taking a deep breath, a sob threatening to break through his chest and out his mouth.

"Get your ass in here then." John said hatefully and when Carl stood painfully and slowly, he lunged toward him and yanked him by the shirt toward the hall and a back bedroom.

"Seriously! Come on!" Carl could hear Dan's voice from the front room, as John pushed him into the bedroom and shut the door. He pulled off his backpack and sat it down, pulling some more dried fruit, a bottle of water, and package of nuts from an airline and putting them down onto the dresser. Carl wanted to laugh. How many years had it been since an airplane had flown? Where did he get a package of nuts like this? The absurdity of it was sad and humorous at the same thing, like so many things seemed to be now. 

John turned to Carl and bent down face to face with him on the bed, hands pressed into the mattress and pushing him back uncomfortably while he got as close to his face as possible. John's smell brought back memories from the night before last, and Carl started to panic, stars sparking in his vision. But John didn't touch him, simply got in his face, and said in a calm, deep, but threatening voice.

"I think I should lay down a few more rules. I know it's a lot but I'm confident you'll learn. The rule you learned at the motel? Struggle, but not too much. And the rule you will learn tonight? Don't talk shit to me. You might hear my boys runnin' their mouths but they know their place. You don't have a place, so don't talk back to me and don't disrespect me, especially in front of them." He paused for a moment to gauge Carl's reaction, "Are these things you are capable of understanding, or did you lose part of your brain when you lost that eye?"

Feeling incredibly pathetic Carl nodded his head, his hands shaking from the terror of what could have happened in the front room only moments ago, "I understand. I understand."

"Good. Now eat." John pointed to the food on the dresser and proceeded to get ready for bed. Carl's hands shook as he ate the food slowly, scared of what might happen next and afraid he wouldn't be able to handle the pain, when John got into the bed and rolled away from him, facing the wall. He let out a sigh of relief and finished the food, drank the water and laid in the bed on top of the covers. 

"No." John said firmly, startling Carl, "Under." He said darkly, pulling up the blanket.

Carl climbed under the covers and went to lay turned away from John, when he turned around and grabbed him, making him face him.

"I'm not a cruel man." John began quietly, "But I'm a man with needs. So you can take care of me however you please tonight. Hand, mouth, your choice. But do it and do it good or I will take the choice away from you and do what I need to do, cruel or not."

Carl began shivering again and as John pulled his hand under the blanket and toward him, pulling the waistband of his underwear out and Carl's hand inside, he let him. He had done this before but wasn't confident he could do it to someone else or do it well and the thought of what would come if he didn't terrified him. 

John spit into his own hand and rubbed himself before wrapping Carl's hand around himself and squeezing, telling him silently to get to work. The way John moved and the noises he made, the sound of his breath, made Carl shake with disgust and fear.

It only took a few minutes before John was finished and Carl rolled out of the bed and headed toward the door before John asked him where he was going, and when Carl said to wash his hands John told him to wipe it on the bed. Carl did but as tears welled up in his eye he still felt used, disgusting, and filled with despair. 


	11. BOOTS

The temperature continued to drop as Carl and John and his men traveled through the winter. One cold night Carl heard one of the men talking about how it was New Year's Eve and although he wasn't sure how he could really know that, he realized his birthday had come and gone without him noticing and he was sixteen now. Thinking about his birthday brought about an aching in his heart, a memory of laughing about balloons that seemed so distant now. 

He wasn't sure where they were going, but they had been traveling south, to warmer weather Carl assumed, although they hadn't made it and the winter was here. If they didn't have a car they would walk as far as they could before sleeping on the ground, cold and hard. Before leaving the small house on the side of the road that they'd cleared of walkers weeks ago, Carl had noticed Negan's hooded sweatshirt in the trunk of his car they were leaving behind and immediately reached for it before anyone else had a chance to. Ben, one of John's men, stepped forward and was going to say something, when John put a hand on his chest and pushed him back, allowing Carl to take the shirt.

Now that the weather was even colder and they were walking so much, Carl was thankful he had the hoodie, even if seeing it brought him so much sadness at first. He didn't know he would miss Negan so much. He didn't know that he needed him so much. And he didn't know that not knowing if he was dead or alive or safe would torment him so much. 

Being with John and his men wasn’t all bad. John had a bad temper and if Carl did or said the wrong thing he'd often get a punch to the face or a kick to the stomach, depending on where he was at the time. But as the days went on he learned quickly what did or didn't set him off and what he wanted to hear from Carl or wanted him to do. In passing Carl had told the story of what happened to his eye and told John about how much it still hurt sometimes, and to his surprise John stopped hitting him there. Only once did he beat him badly for calling him "a piece of shit" after John had been drinking whiskey they found in the back of a drug store. He was wasted and Carl assumed he wouldn't hear him or remember, but he did and flew into a fit of rage. Beating Carl so bad he could barely walk the following day. 

A few days later after John (for lack of more appropriate words for description) "used" Carl, he ran his finger across the scabbed cut on Carl's cheek, and the split in his lip in an uncomfortably intimate gesture, saying quietly with a laugh, "Damn little man, I got you good." Carl took that as an apology and he hadn't hit him since (other than a push or a shove when he was drinking but Carl knew then to put as much distance between himself and John as he possibly good, and would disappear into another room). Carl was unpleasantly surprised to find that one of the few things you could find in full supply, if you found it, was alcohol. And John and his men would take as much as they could carry.

The rest of the men either didn't like Carl because they felt like he was receiving special treatment from John or they didn’t pay any attention to him at all. He tried to keep his distance from them because he didn’t trust them and they still frightened him. He found himself alone with one of them once or twice and felt cornered, especially by Dan. John took care of Carl, making sure the other guys left him alone for the most part, making sure he was fed, had clothes, and Carl made sure John's needs were met the best he could. After the first time John raped him, he gave Carl a few days before doing it again. Still he wasn’t ready when he did it again, or the next time he did it, or even the time after that. Now it didn’t hurt as much as it did then and sometimes it didn’t hurt at all and it would leave Carl with his head swimming in thoughts or feelings he thought he would drown in and that he was ashamed to admit he was thinking or feeling. The thoughts would build, confusing him, and burying him until he couldn't breathe. Still after a few weeks he finally stopped fighting and starting crying only after he was sure John was asleep. 

They were all thankful when they finally came across running vehicles again. They made base in a small, rundown neighborhood in what once was a bad area of town. Boarding up what they could of the mostly broken windows and doors they tried to settle in for at least the coldest weeks of the winter. Carl knew he and Negan had gone at least 400 miles north into Pennsylvania looking for Rick and even though Steven, one of John's men, had a map and said they were in somewhere in Virginia Carl wasn't sure anymore. Most nights the temperature at night seemed to be 45 to 50 degrees so Carl assumed they weren't too far north or south. Many days he felt like they were just wandering around, sometimes in circles, just trying to find anything or anywhere they could but it didn't bother him. He was convinced there wasn't anything he needed to find anymore.

John would let Carl wander a bit on his own now, having finally given back his knife, and he cautiously looked through the windows of a nearby house as everyone was scavenging for supplies. It looked empty so he headed in the open front door thinking there was no way he'd find anything useful here. It looked like the place has been picked through once over. Still, he made his way slowly room to room, hoping he'd find something, anything, to please John and make him think he was more than just another mouth to feed.

That's when he found them in one of the last two rooms in the hall, a pair of brown cowboy boots next to the bed, worn and dirty. A pair identical to his dad's. He ran to them and threw himself to the floor, snatching them up, excitement and dread filling his chest. Were these Rick's boots? In a panic he couldn't remember what color his dad's had been. Were they darker than these? The insides of them were so worn that Carl couldn't see what size they were. And then he was filled with sadness when he realized he couldn't remember what size his dad wore. Holding one in his hands he let the sadness overwhelm him tears started to form in his eye.

Tired of holding it back and pretending things weren't the way they were and that he wasn't hurting like he was, he let the floodgates open and began to sob. With self-pity, desperation, and devastation overwhelming him, he couldn't help but cry, his body shaking from the sobbing. Squeezing the boot tight in his hands he missed his dad more than anything, his sister, Michonne, even his life after the dead started walking, before John and his men and his world becoming even more hellish than it already was. And Negan.

That's why when the walker entered the room from behind Carl didn't hear it. And as it shuffled toward him he was on the verge of hyperventilating and couldn't catch his breath. And when it grabbed him from behind his first thought was it was John, or one of his men, and he didn't immediately respond. But then he sniffled and tried to regain his composure and could smell the rotting flesh of the walker and heard the growl as it tightened it's grip.

Panicking he screamed and spun around, but the walker held onto him, and he fell backward with the walker falling on top of him. Yelling again, he tried to push it off of him and reach for his knife. The awkward angle of the walker on top of him prevented him from reaching it and he pushed desperately with all his strength to get the walker off, to keep his biting mouth from connecting with Carl's body.

He put his hand on the walkers forehead, trying to push it back, when the rotting flesh of the walker's face started to slide off, and Carl's hand slide down it's face. Turning it's face to the side, it sunk its teeth into the side of Carl's wrist. 

Hearing the grinding of teeth on his bones, Carl snarled and pushed again, rolling the walker off of him. Reaching down for his knife he pulled it from his leg and in one swift movement, drove it hilt deep into the side of the walker's head.

Clutching his wrist to his chest with his other hand, blood pouring from his wound and a stain blossoming out over the front of Negan’s sweatshirt, he heard thundering footsteps and looked up to see John and one of his men, Jeremy, run into the room.

Heart pounding and his face covered in tears, snot, and a layer a sweat despite the cold air of the room, Carl sat silently, shaking, panting, and holding his bleeding wrist against his chest, blood now soaking his shirt.

John's eyes went from the walker to Carl, widening in shock and what must have also been fear, "Carl!" He exclaimed but stood his ground, afraid to approach Carl and discover he'd been bitten. "What happened?!"

Carl remained silent, trying to catch his breath, afraid to tell the truth.

"It got me." He panted out, squeezing his burning and bleeding wrist even tighter.

Jeremy cocked his gun, raised it, finger on the trigger, and pointed it directly at Carl's face.


	12. MYTHS

Carl didn't speak, move or otherwise do anything except squeeze his eye shut and brace himself. This was the end, it was finally here, and he was ready to go. He'd lost everyone and everything, even all of himself, and he was tired of fighting every day. Fear and sadness washed over him, but he was still ready to go. Part of him wanted to shout for Jeremy to stop, that he was immune, but waited to hear the gunshot, trembling, the pain in his wrist reaching a new level and beginning to throb and sting.

"Stop!" John suddenly screamed, lunging forward and snapping Carl back to his senses. He opened his eye to see that John had positioned himself in front of Carl, between him and Jeremy. They began to argue but Carl's ears were ringing and he suspected he was going into shock, he couldn’t make out or focus on what they were saying. After a few moments John knelt down in front of him, grasping him firmly by the wrists and pulling them out from Carl's body.

Carl winced, and John examined the walker bite. Tearing his own jacket off, John wrapped the sleeve tightly around Carl's wrist and tied it. John stood and pulled Carl up, holding him tightly against his body, and almost carrying him from the room.

Time seemed to speed up, and Carl found himself in bed, back in the house they'd moved their supplies into and decided to stay in. John didn't say anything, closed the door and left the room. Carl could hear arguing, Jeremy telling the other men what had happened and John yelling. It was muffled and Carl's ears were still ringing, in shock he looked down at his wrist, the blood was seeping through John’s jacket and although the aching had spread up his arm, it seemed to have dulled.

John came back into the room, obviously breathing heavily from shouting, but Carl wondered if it was also from fear or emotions. Was John upset that he thought Carl was going to die? Was he going to miss him if he did?

"Carl." He began, approaching the bed slowly, "What happened?"

"Do you remember that day at the river this summer, when you asked about my scar?" He continued, pointing to his side.

They had been walking for over a week and were tired, filthy, hot and hungry. Carl heard the rush of the water before the rest of them and began running in the direction of the sound. They all ended up stripping all their clothes off and getting in the water. After, when they were sitting on the bank waiting for their rinsed clothes to dry, John had noticed the scars from Carl's first bite mark, and asked what it was. It was completely healed now, the pale skin knitted together and raised up. It was still circular in shape, but didn't at first glance didn't really resemble a bite mark. Carl lied, telling John he had fallen into something. During the nights they spent together Carl wore a shirt or it was dark, and John didn't ask about it again. Carl just assumed he either believed him or didn't care much to question it again.

"Yes, I remember." John replied, watching as Carl gingerly pulled his shirt up, trying to avoid using much of his now wounded wrist. 

"I was bitten. Before. Years ago, before we met." And he went on to explain everything that had happened, the fever, his entire community burning to the ground, Negan finding him and the fever breaking. “I know it’s unbelievable. But I think I’m immune.”

John pushed Carl back down on the pillows and pulled his shirt back up, wanting to examine the scar in more detail. Up close he could see the areas of the scar that did look like teeth marks. He ran his fingers over the sensitive skin, tickling Carl and causing goosebumps to rise on his stomach, spreading up his arms and shoulders. He wondered if John believed him or if he was going to kill him and sadly realized he wasn’t sure he had a preference. 

John left the room again without saying anything and Carl pulled his wrist back to his chest, holding it there tight. When John returned he had a bottle of water, a bowl, towel, bandages, and pills, which must have been ibuprofen to combat the fever that Carl would soon develop. He pulled Carl's hand out, untying his jacket to check the bite wound on his wrist. It was still seeping blood but it had definitely slowed, the edges of the bite were purple where the walker's teeth hadn't broken the skin but badly bruised it. 

John poured some water into the bowl and dipped the towel, bringing it up to Carl's skin and trying to gently clean the wound. Carl hissed in pain but was shocked at how gentle John was being. He looked from his wrist up to John’s face, suddenly realizing that he was an attractive man when he wasn’t so angry. His face had softened, his blond hair had grown a bit and was framing his cheeks. His eyes were a bright blue and Carl had never noticed how long his eyelashes were before. Snapping him out of his frighteningly confusing thoughts, Carl’s heart ached to see one of the pads and elastic bandages that Negan had found for him over a year ago. John laid a pad carefully on Carl's wrist and slowly wrapped it tightly, instructing him to take the pills and drink all the water.

Carl laid in bed the rest of the day, wondering if now that he didn't have a doctor to tend to him he might die from the bite, but again not caring much if he did. His head started to pound and he felt as if his entire arm was on fire, followed by aching and shivering as he dozed off to sleep. John threw the rest of the men out of the house and ordered them to bunker down somewhere else, while they waited out the fever to see what would happen to Carl. So the house was quiet and Carl slept the rest of the day and the night.

The following morning he was weak and couldn't eat and his fever lasted throughout the day. By nightfall he was sweating and whining and John was nervously pacing the room. He would never admit it, but John hadn't slept those two nights. 

By the third day Carl was sitting up again, still hot as a furnace but not shivering as much, and was able to eat a small package of broken crackers and to keep down half a bottle of water. He was lightheaded and dizzy when he tried to stand, but his wrist was starting to dry and scab over.

Night came and Carl was sleeping restlessly, he heard John come into the room and quietly shut the door, but kept his eye closed, frustrated by his tossing and turning and just wanting to fall back asleep.

John leaned onto the bed, reached across and brushed Carl’s hair off his forehead gently, placed the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead, checking to see how hot he was. The gentle touch stirred something almost foreign to him in Carl’s lower belly, and he felt his heartbeat start to rise but didn’t open his eye. Then he felt John lay down in the bed next to him and his body pressed against Carl’s own. Fear overcame him and he stayed as still as he could, trying to steady his breathing and continuing to feign sleep. That’s when he felt John’s warm breath against lips and for a fleeting moment thought he was going to kiss him, which he had never even tried to do. 

His eye shot open and he looked directly into John’s eyes in the dim lighting of the lantern by the bed. Heart pounding in his chest, he almost felt disappointed when John stared into his eyes for a moment before he rolled into his back and closed his eyes. 

John stayed in the room with Carl most of the time, and the rest of the time he could hear him in the house, or he left to help kill walkers that were overrunning the neighborhood. One morning, so early that the sun hadn't fully risen yet, John startled Carl awake by pulling on his hand, turning it over so he could inspect the wound on wrist.

Groaning, Carl rolled onto his back, irritated that John woke him by pulling on his sore wrist, but he knew better than to pull away. John pressed Carl's fingers down into the mattress, they were warm despite the chill in the air. Carl didn't know it but John wanted to entwine his own fingers with Carl, but decided not to. Instead he suddenly took notice of the fact that Carl's hands had seemed to grow overnight, his fingers almost as long as John's own.

"How old are you?" John asked seemingly out of nowhere, almost making Carl laugh, a feeling that was and a sound that definitely would have been so foreign and unnatural to him. John didn't apologize for waking him up, didn't ask Carl how he was feeling, or even tell him good morning (something he had never actually said), out of nowhere he wanted to know how old Carl was when it didn't matter to him at all for any reason until now.

Carl told him, blinking in the dim morning light and yawning, stretching and wincing a bit, his hand and wrist felt stiff. Even after the dead came back alive, every year Carl's parents would tell him Happy Birthday. He wasn't sure if anyone really knew what day it actually was anymore, and they didn't celebrate any of the holidays they had when Carl was a child, but (and he suspected it was is mother's doing) they picked a day when the leaves had fallen off of the trees and the wind had picked up to wish Carl happy birthday. After his mom died, he kept track of his age by the winters, something that made him too sad if he thought about it too much.

After he told John how old he was and that if the New Year had really begun, his birthday was only a few days ago, John smirked as he said, "Damn. I wish I had known, I would've brought you home some balloons." 

Carl ripped his hand away from John's as if he had been burned, his breath catching in his throat. There it was again, there _he_ was again, Negan. That stupid joke and stupid smile that felt so distant and dissolved in his memory bank, buried by new, fresh, and painful experiences, brought to the front of his brain, the happiness he had felt in that moment actually tormenting him. Almost instantaneously he apologized for pulling his hand away, mumbling to John that it was still tender. Realizing that tears had fulled his eye and looking away before John could notice, feeling stupid and childish.

Once a week passed and Carl's fever broke and he began getting some of his strength back, John told him they were packing up and leaving again, that there were too many walkers in this area. As the men loaded up the car, Carl shook slightly as he began to gather up his things, still feeling weak. He stopped and frowned at the blood stained gray hoodie. He picked it up and thought about burying it like Negan did Lucile all that time ago, but simply tossed it to the floor. Then he quietly went back to the house he'd gotten the walker bite in to collect the cowboy boots. He had decided they weren't his dad's after all and although they were too big for his feet, he dropped them in the truck of the car anyway, before they sped off.


	13. CAGED

Back on the road Steven caught pneumonia and when he died in the back seat of the car, John pushed his body out and drove off. Steven and Ben got into an argument and Ben ended up with his skull smashed in. Steven was tired of going back and forth on the road and wanted to head east to try and find his family and he parted ways with the remaining four of them.

It wasn't until almost spring that they stopped at an old hotel where John wanted to rummage through the rooms for food. They were running out of everything and trying to ration the remaining food had left them all irritable and tired. With only Dan, Jeremy, Carl, and John left it took hours to get through half the rooms, many of them containing walkers. John walked in on Jeremy wrestling with a particularly large one and before he could step in to help, the walker pushed Jeremy backwards through a large window and to his death on the pavement six stories below. The breaking glass and crash attracted more walkers to the side of the hotel than Dan, John, and Carl could handle on their own, and they abandoned the area. 

Once they started seeing signs for a safe area nearby, John decided he wanted to head in that direction, hoping it still stood. Seeing as there were only the three of them left, the chances of surviving alone were slimming and even though John didn't play well with others, he wanted to survive. The closer they got to the community the more afraid and nervous Carl became. It had been over a year since Carl had talked to anyone other than the men in John’s group. John and Dan began to argue almost constantly, putting Carl in a near constant bad mood, always on edge. His panic attacks were fewer and farther between despite his nervousness, and sometimes just squeezing his eye shut painfully tight and breathing deeply through his nose was enough to deter one. Every time he felt his hands start to shake or his breathing to quicken in pace, fear and shame would flood very him, making him feel like a weak child.

They found a small trailer park on the way and decided to search it, splitting up to cover more ground before getting back on the road as quickly as possible. While in the back of one of the mobile homes searching through a closet, Carl heard rustling behind him. Startled and reaching for his knife he felt a hand from behind him push down tightly over his mouth. It was Dan. He grabbed Carl around the throat with his other arm and pulled him back toward the bed. Apparently now that all the other men were gone, Dan thought it worth the risk and wanted Carl all to himself. Lifting his hand off of Carl's mouth for a moment in the shuffle, Carl screamed at the top of his lungs, kicking and punching Dan anywhere that he could make contact with his body. A few seconds of wrestling later and John burst into the room gun raised. Dan leaped off of Carl and the bed, backing up into the room with his hands up. John looked from Carl to Dan and then Carl almost didn't look away in time as shot Dan right between the eyes, no questions asked.

When the two of them finally arrived at the community a few weeks later, the woman who met them at the gate was kind and soft-spoken. She asked if John was Carl's father, despite the fact they were only 15 years apart in age, which made Carl's stomach churn and tighten and then had the men guarding the gate take away their weapons and led them to a holding area where they could stay temporarily until it was decided whether they were safe to stay permanently. 

The whole place was neat and clean and reminded Carl so much of Alexandria and the last time he'd been brought inside from out in the world and given the chance to tame. He felt the same way he did then. Wild and caged and afraid.

But oddly enough John slept so deeply that night, it was the first time Carl ever heard him snore, and he didn't toss and turn at all like he normally did. Before falling asleep John pulled Carl against his chest and wrapped his arms around him. Carl couldn’t decide if he was afraid or comforted by John’s new behavior, but to his surprise, that was the first night in years that Carl kicked off his boots to sleep too.


	14. VALOR

After a few days of being inside the gates and John‘s initial affectionate behavior he began to act strangely. Not being able to control everyone and everything around him seemed to make him more irritable, aggressive, and even abusive toward Carl again in private. 

Carl was finding it difficult to get comfortable around anyone in the community. He didn’t want to answer any questions and couldn’t keep any conversations going. He was afraid and felt broken. He wanted to be left alone. 

The houses didn’t have electricity and meals were served to everyone who wanted to come under large tents near the center of the neighborhood, cooked on grills. This provided the perfect opportunity for people to try to talk to Carl, get to know him and where he and John from. This angered John, who didn’t want to answer any questions either. He would berate Carl in private, accuse him of telling people things he shouldn’t, and began pushing and shoving him again and an internal war began raging inside Carl's head. He didn't want to talk to anyone but he did observe them. Seeing their interactions was interesting to Carl, having been alone with John and his men for so long. Everything he did or said to stay alive, felt so distant and wrong now. He found that after all this time the part of him that he'd buried so deep to survive was stirring again, wanting to fight.

But still Carl no longer struggled at night with John anymore and he would even do or say things he knew that John wanted done or said without being prompted. Part of him knew what John had done to him wasn’t something Carl deserved and part of him didn’t, having never been taught what was right and wrong about this and having done it for so long. When he allowed his true feelings to surface it made Carl feel desperate, weak, and afraid, so he found it easier to just bury them all, so he didn't drown in his guilt.

One night after drinking the last bottle of whiskey he had in his backpack at dinner, earning him looks from the other members of the community, John began being too rough with Carl. He was upset with him for talking to an older man while they ate, and he’d shoved him forward and down on his hands and knees in the house as soon as they’d walked back. 

Crying out, pain searing from his wrists and knees, Carl tried to stand, stumbling forward before John shoved him again from behind. Losing his balance and falling into the table near the door, Carl screamed, the edge of the wood digging into his ribs. 

Heart beating painfully and mind racing he thought of his dad and of Negan’s promise to punish him for what he’d done. He thought about how after all was said and never done, Negan had been a man different than he knew John ever could and he found himself longing for him. He wondered if he was still alive or if he had ever tried to find Carl again. He told himself that he wasn’t and if he was, he hadn’t.

“You really are a worthless piece of shit.” John growled, his voice snapping Carl back to reality, grabbing the hair on top of his head and pulling him back against his chest. 

The pain caused tears to well up in Carl’s eye, shaming him for letting John get under his skin and make him cry when finally felt he’d trained himself not to and for being foolish enough to think just a few days ago that John had changed. 

“I know what you’re up to. I know what you’re trying to do.” John threatened darkly, “Don’t say shit Carl. Don’t think about going anywhere. You are mine, bitch. I’ll die before I let you go.” He laughed and even from behind him Carl could smell the alcohol on his breath. 

For a moment Carl thought to fight John off. To run out the back door and scream for help. He told himself he could keep running and never come back, that John couldn’t control him anymore, that maybe help could finally come. But deep down he feared that no one could help him and he’d come back, because John’s touch was all he had and all he knew anymore.

Reaching down to Carl’s jeans he unbuckled hastily and yanked at his belt. A fear began to rise from the pit of Carl’s stomach, this hellish experience not having been this way for so long. He knew what was coming and out of instinct didn’t struggle. 

John swiftly pulled Carl’s jeans down to his thighs and pushed him down onto the table, hand in the back of his underwear, fingers probing. Just as he was about to find what he was looking for the front door behind the slammed open, hitting the wall. 

Crying freely now, Carl took advantage of John’s moment of shock and pulled away from him. In the threshold of the front door stood three men, two of which Carl had seen around in the past week. Feeling invaded upon, embarrassed, but also saved at the same time, he took a step back, stumbling from the jeans now around his ankles. 

The men and John began to argue, John trying to make excuses for what they’d walked in on, as Carl quickly pulled his jeans back up. John told them this was his business and his alone and that he wasn’t doing anything Carl hadn’t wanted or asked for, disgusted Carl got a surge of courage and spoke. 

“You know I don’t want this,” he began quietly, before his tone began to raise, the men holding John away from him fueling his courage, “I never wanted this. You kidnapped me! You hurt me! You’re disgusting! I hate you!” He screamed so loud he thought his vocal chords would tear, shaking with rage, his chest heaving with emotion. But when one of the men approached Carl he stepped back in fear. Ears ringing with trauma and the shock settling in, he heard the man say his name, stepping taking another step toward him and into the light shining through the living room window. His legs shaking and his body trembling uncontrollably, mind racing, and heart pounding, Carl sputtered out, “Negan?”


	15. PHOENIX

Carl felt as if all the air had been forced out of him, like he'd been punched in the stomach, his lungs constricted, head spinning, and vision trying to fade to black. 

But at the same time he felt an elation like nothing he’d felt in years, could he just be seeing things? Crazier things had happened, hadn't they?

“Carl.” Negan repeated firmly, taking a step toward him. Almost positive of what he’d just walked in on, part of Negan was ready to tear the man behind him apart, but a surprisingly larger part was desperate to just first make sure Carl was okay. 

Head still spinning Carl tried to take in a deep breath and his entire body was trembling with emotion. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief, a heavy weight lifting from him he never knew he’d been carrying. Unsure of what to do, or say, Carl took a step toward Negan with his hands out, reaching, needing Negan to catch him before he fell. And Negan did. 

\---

After it was clear to the other men that Negan knew Carl they left and dragged John with them. He was still yelling and trying to apologize to Carl, to get to him, but Carl's ears didn't seem to be working properly, everything sounding distant and fuzzy. Even if he could hear what John was saying in that moment felt so brave that he didn't think he would even care. 

That feeling of bravery was fleeting and lasted for only a moment before Carl realized he was in Negan's arms, making him feel childish and silly, a small victim, and he pulled away and asked about Rick. 

After he'd woken up at the cabin and Carl was gone, Negan found his way back to base. He packed up everything he would consider to be his and just left everything else and everyone there behind. For a while he just went from place to place, hoping he'd find Carl but never admitting even to himself that he was looking for him, each place devastating him less and less, finding no trace of him. He wandered back and forth for months before running out of food and water and finding himself close to giving up when someone from the community found him and brought him back. He never saw Rick, or Michonne, or any trace of them or anyone else from Alexandria

It had been so long since Carl really thought of Rick and he was ashamed to admit it. He used to think about him, wonder where he was, and if he was okay, but shame would overwhelm him and before he broke down he could force the thoughts back down in the labyrinth of his mind. He didn't want his father to ever know what he'd done to survive, didn't want to see the look on his face to find he was alive and that Carl hadn't found him, hadn't even tried to for over a year. It wan't Negan's job to put the shards of Carl's shattered life back together, but he foolishly believed for a split second that if Negan were here, he undoubtedly would have found his family and they would be here too. He felt his heart begin to beat quicker, harder, and a fiery sensation was rising in his throat. He suddenly felt like he was going to vomit, and felt his face burning as disappointment flooded over him. 

"Carl?" Negan asked, concerned as Carl took a step back. He'd stood so silently while Negan told him the story of where he'd been since that day at the cabin that Negan wasn't sure he'd even been listening and now Carl looked overwhelmed and almost as if he were going to be sick, "Are you alright? What are you feeling?" 

"What am I _feeling_? You're not my therapist. It's not your job to fix this, to save me. It never was." Carl spat out, closing his hands into fists to stop them from shaking, and avoiding eye contact with Negan. He felt like he was coming undone and even though he'd felt so brave and safe a few minutes ago, it was like someone had flipped a switch and now he was falling apart and the feeling scared him and made him feel like he was going crazy. 

Negan didn't say anything for a moment and when he began to speak Carl accepted just how angry he'd really become and he wouldn't let him begin, "It doesn't matter to you what I'm feeling, or anyone else. It's not your problem, I'm not your problem," Carl's voice shook just like his hands, and the uncontrollably trembling was spreading up his arms and into his chest. 

He felt vulnerable and scared, childish and weak, and for the first time in so long he felt like the victim he was, absolutely terrifying and crushing him. Why didn't Negan come and find him? Why didn't he stop John from hurting him? Why didn't Negan find Rick? What if Rick was dead? What if Judith was dead? What if they were all gone just like his mom? He found himself unfairly and selfishly blaming Negan for all the pain he'd been through even if deep down he knew it wasn't Negan's fault. Why hadn't Negan saved him? The weight of the harsh reality of what Carl had just been through felt as if it were crushing him and suffocating him. He'd been kidnapped, he'd been beat, he'd been raped and almost killed. After desperately trying to stay afloat in the sea of pain he'd been in for so long, to avoid truly feeling it all, he felt like he was sinking and going to drown in the reality of what he'd been through.

"Carl, stop. Just let me..." Negan began, not sure what he wanted Carl to let him do. Just let him talk, explain? Let him apologize, let him listen? Let him hold him? Let him try to fix it? Let him do something. Carl looked so grown up now, older, but still so small, and afraid and all Negan wanted to do was help somehow.

"You can't." Carl spat out firmly, almost as if he could read Negan's mind, "Please go." He said in the most demanding tone he could muster before leaving the room and letting himself completely break down against the closed bathroom door. This felt so wrong. He thought seeing Negan again would be different. That he'd feel different. It was wrong.

He had told Negan to leave but was unpleasantly surprised to see when he finally left the bathroom that Negan actually had, leaving Carl alone. He found himself disappointed by the fact and also amused that he could have stupidly expected otherwise considering all of what he'd just said. When the following day came and went and night approached Carl was sad to not see Negan at all, anywhere. For so long he just wanted to see him again, to know that Negan was alive and safe, to be with him, and now he wasn't even sure if he wanted to reach out to him to ask why he hadn't been back to this house to check on Carl. He decided he didn't want to know. After everything he'd done for him, Carl decided to focus on everything Negan had done to him and bitterly promised himself he'd leave him alone if that's what Negan wanted.

At least a week had passed with Carl staying inside and avoiding everyone as much as he could, but he did see or hear that Negan would come and go from the community often, it seemed that he would leave for a few days a time. He went from worrying about Negan behind outside the community walls to pretending to and trying to convince himself that he didn't care. 

Carl found himself shifting between fear and shame and wanting isolation, and happiness and seeking companionship. He didn’t want to talk to anyone and yet some days he hoped someone who would try to talk to him, even if he was afraid he wouldn't be brave enough to respond. And they did. The more days went by the more Carl found himself enjoying the company of the others in the community, even remembering some of them by name, greeting them with a smile. 

Over time it seemed that some wanted to try and make friends with him but he found he just wasn’t ready. For some reason he wasn’t sure he could ever trust someone again. Some nights he would fall asleep as soon as his eye closed and others he would lie away, cry, or finding himself lost in a daze, numb and unable to feel anything. But all of those nights were spent on the couch, Carl unwilling to feel the loneliness of the empty pillow beside him and feeling the soul-crushing defeat of knowing that a part of him missed John. John had taken so much from Carl and Carl knew that every time he thought about him he was allowing John to still have control, to steal more of Carl's moments from him, but some nights he couldn't control his thoughts from going there.

With each passing day Carl found himself deep down really wanting more and more to be involved again. He tried to help with the garden or building, fixing the cars, and finally scavenging and looking for more people to bring back to safety even though the thought of meeting strangers terrified him every time he left. He learned to drive and went out on his own. Spring and another summer came and went, then fall and then Carl was sure he missed his birthday again. 18 and with an independence he thought he’d lost two years ago thanks to a walker bite, he’d finally settled back into a place he could call his own. 

As bizarre as it seemed to co-exist in a place with Negan where they were neither friend no foe, Carl finally stopped pretending that he didn't care, and finally started admitting to himself that he found comfort in knowing Negan was back safe, every time he would return to the community.

\---

The sun was bright even though it had been raining all morning and it felt uncomfortably hot on the back of his neck that wasn't covered by his t-shirt, slightly damp with sweat. The smell of the dirt invaded his sinuses, but he loved it. Beads of sweat were collecting on his forehead, and he tried in vain to dry his skin, knowing it would be wet again in a few moments time. Concentrating and distracted, he almost didn't hear and at first didn't react to the low, deep, familiar voice. "Hey, kid."


	16. OXYGEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carl and Negan are more than friends. If you don't like it, don't read it.

“Hey, kid." 

Hair pulled back into a ponytail and out of his face, sweat dripping down his forehead while bent over the garden pulling weeds from the tomato plants, Carl reacted to the voice and looked up.

Squinting in the harsh sunlight he could still make out Negan's smirk. With a responding, "Hey," he looked away and began to go back to work, all interactions between himself and Negan having been just simply this and nothing more.

But this time Negan told him to take a break, come with him, get something to drink and cool off. Taken by surprise but intrigued, Carl stood and followed Negan back to the house he was calling his own.

Small, but bright and clean, Carl couldn't help but notice the smell as soon as he walked in. Overwhelmingly Negan, something about it so comforting and oddly familiar, a warmth washing over him unlike anything he'd felt in so long. And so that's how it began. 

You hold onto what you can, and the chance to hold onto anything being so rare now that when you can, you can hold on too tightly. Carl hadn't thought about it much but if he had, he would have been convinced he couldn't learn to love in any way again. Pain being the hardest emotion to lose, every experience tainted with it, swirling through every memory, sometimes pulling everything else down, covering it all with the black, hopeless desperation of pain. Not really able to put anything he had gone through or felt into perspective, Carl found himself becoming more and more confused. It didn't take long for Negan to realize Carl had built a wall to protect himself and that he'd shut all the light out even if it did take some time to figure out how to break through that wall and he decided if Carl needed to be loved, he could do that. Trying to bury the memories of everything he'd gone through and ignore his demons, Carl started to laugh again, look forward to living everyday, not just surviving, and it seemed like Negan took some of that pain away.

A relationship different than one that either of them ever had before, neither was ashamed to say the other was his best friend. And appropriate or not, Carl was an adult now and it didn't matter how many years Negan had on him, they were equals. Still oddly protective, Negan found himself wanting to shield Carl from anything he possibly could, with a sad realization that there was next to nothing he hadn't been exposed to now. Never talking about what he walked in on that day, Negan knew and it tore him up. He never told Carl that he had been the one who dragged John out into the woods, far enough out that his screams could only vaguely be heard, shooting him in the leg and letting walkers surround him, but even that being a kinder fate than Negan thought John deserved.

Being around Negan made Carl feel safe, but uneasy and confused. His feelings started to change and he wasn’t sure what they were anymore. He couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement sometimes when he saw Negan. He remembered how his dad made him feel, and it wasn’t like this. Or how John made him feel, and it definitely wasn’t this. He only knew that he needed Negan and Negan didn’t care what Carl needed, he was determined to give it to him. 

That’s why one dark fall night, as the sun began to set, Carl (who can recently occasionally begin drinking occasionally) had too many beers, Negan didn’t pull away when he threw his arms around him, putting his nose into Negan’s neck, giggling. And why he took him to the couch and let him stay snuggled there until morning. Or why he didn’t bring it up the next day, knowing Carl didn’t want to talk about it. When Carl’s hand brushed his own in the car during a run and he left it there, Negan didn’t move. When Carl told him that Negan gave him butterflies in his stomach he just smiled, not sure if he was joking or flirting. And when the morning came that Carl stepped toward him and pressed his lips to his own, Negan planted his feet to the floor and kissed him back. 

It was cold and the sun hadn’t come up yet. They spent most of the night talking and laughing, Negan telling Carl stories about before everything happened, and a dog he used to have that would constantly escape the house and have Negan chasing him all over the neighborhood. The thought of Negan with a dog made Carl almost giddy, something so normal and endearing. Even though he stayed the night some nights, others he walked back to the other house, and Carl didn’t ask why. But this morning as Negan made his way to the door Carl stopped him. 

Torn between staying put in the chair after saying goodnight and going after him, Carl leapt up and sprinted toward the entryway, “Wait!”

Negan haulted in response and turned to face him. Before he lost his nerve, Carl took two steps forward, closed the distance between them, wrapped his arms around Negan’s neck, and pressed his lips to his. 

Squeezing his eye tight, stars formed in the black of his vision, his lips beginning to tingle before the feeling spread to his entire face. He pulled back, feeling his cheeks flush with excitement and some fear and embarrassment. 

But Negan grabbed him and pulled him back in, smashing his lips back to his, kissing him frantically. It was almost as if his lips suddenly realized he needed him almost as much as his lungs needed oxygen. 

Kissing hard for a few moments left Carl dizzy and lightheaded, his heart pounding. Negan pulled away and looked Carl’s face over, trying to read him before diving back in, hoisting him up, legs around his waist, and taking him to the bedroom down the hall. 

Nothing thus far felt anything but natural, but Negan was still apprehensive. Unsure of what Carl was thinking or feeling, he decided he would go as slow as his body would allow him to. Laughing as he sat Carl down, feet to the floor, Carl pulled him by the collar of his shirt back onto the bed. 

Overwhelmed by the taste of Negan’s lips and the smell of his skin, Carl was breathless. Going back in for another kiss like he was starving for him, Carl bit down softly on Negan’s bottom lip, producing a moan and a growl from the older man as he climbed on top of him in the bed. 

Afraid of what having a man on top of Carl might do to him, Negan rolled him over onto their sides, so Carl could have more control. But as he reached down to pull Carl’s shirt up, rough hand grasping the soft skin of his hip, Carl let out a gasp. 

Negan pulled his hand back so fast it was like he had been burnt, and Carl was softly panting, a vacant expression on his face. 

“It’s okay,” Negan began, pushing Carl’s hair back out of his face but scared to touch him anywhere else, “We don’t have to do this. I won’t hurt you.” Heart filling with sadness, the pain of knowing these words were necessary for good reason. 

“I know,” Carl responded after a moment of silence, quietly, and with his heart hammering against his chest and his head pounding he finally admitted something out loud that he hadn't been able to until now, “But someone did.”

It was as though Carl’s words formed an ice cold fist around Negan’s heart, squeezing it in a vice-like grip. He put a hand on the side of Carl’s face, fingers intwined in his hair, and pulled him back in for a soft, short kiss. 

“If you don’t want this, I don’t want this.” Negan told him softly, but firmly. 

Carl took a deep, shaky breath and just nodded, not sure how to respond. He didn’t want to react in any way that made Negan feel like he didn’t want this, because he did. He didn’t want Negan’s hands to make him think of John’s when his smell and touch were so different but it didn’t stop his mind from going there, to a place where it shouldn’t, “I want this.” 

Negan gently pulled Carl back in for another kiss, going slow to give himself time to read him, “I won’t hurt you Carl. I promise.”

And he didn’t.


	17. CRASH

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. In that time Carl turned 19 and found himself learning to trust again. To love someone again. To love himself again despite everything he had gone through and all the reasons he believed he had to hate himself. He and Negan didn't owe anything to anyone and just were, without defining what they had, even with each other. Over time Negan's belongings began appearing at Carl's house, and one night he stayed and just never left.

Some nights Carl still woke up sweating, shaking, and crying, some or all of what he'd been through seeping back to the forefront of his sleeping brain in his dreams, but he never discussed it and Negan never asked. And some mornings after holding Carl and trying to calm him down as he cried Negan wondered if he should have asked, but selfishly decided he almost didn't want to know. And none of it mattered to him, Carl was still Carl to him, he was still whole and good and kind and beautiful.

Negan helped him to laugh again, to look forward to the next morning again, to appreciate everything Carl had so easily begun to overlook and ignore. He was surprised to find he wasn't filled with fear and shame and regret anymore and that he was still worth loving. Their days were filled with as much peace as the world could offer now and a normalcy Carl thought was long gone in the new world.

For months Negan still left the community, most of the time with Carl in tow. Supply runs is what Negan called them, but since more often than not they circled around and visited the areas they had already searched, Carl often wondered if Negan were still looking for Rick, for Judith, for Michonne, for all of the people who Carl held near and dear to his heart. And the thought made his heart ache. What would happen if they did find Carl's father? He knew he certainly wouldn't be okay with Carl and Negan having any sort of friendship, relationship. The thought terrified him, how would he ever be alright again choosing one man over the other? 

When one such run was planned the following morning, Carl was shocked to hear that Negan had left as the sun went down to help with an emergency that had been radioed outside of the gates. A group had been cornered by walkers and needed help, Carl tried not to think about Negan leaving without saying goodbye. And as the sleepless night turned into a rising sun he tried not to panic. The group was a few miles away, something could have happened to the car, to the walkie talkie, to someone in the group. Negan would be back by morning. He had to be, Carl wouldn't accept anything else. 

He didn't sleep the entire night, uneasy and, even if he was being too stubborn to admit it, worried sick. And so by morning the dull ache behind where his eye had once been had become sharp, a pain so severe it was nauseating. Carl had this migraine before, but never quite as bad as this. He laid on the couch, cold, wet washcloth across his head (something Negan had done once a few months ago to help with the pain) and squeezed his eye shut. 

\---

_"Carl!"_

Carl woke with a start, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat despite the cool breeze coming in through the large front window by the couch where he had laid down for a moment a few hours ago to try and relieve the pain in his head. It was afternoon now and the wind was also bringing in several voices, what sounded like a commotion. Carl's brain told him the sounds were heading toward the large wall and gate that was constructed at the south opening of the neighborhood. They were yelling but what they were saying couldn't be made out. Curiosity peaked, Carl carefully rolled off of the couch, babying his head just in case.

As he stood up he tried to shake the dream he had been having out of his head. A nightmare. He had been dying and a woman with bright, kind eyes and a round face, blond hair pulled up into a ponytail, had been screaming his name. That's all he remembered. He wasn't even sure who she had been, although she did look familiar to him, he realized as he stepped off his front walkway and into the street. 

In the distance he could see that one of their neighbors who was on watch at the wall was standing at the cracked open gate, talking to someone unseen. If Carl had been in earshot yet he would have heard him say, "I'm sorry, but you know can't come in. If you're bitten it's not safe."

"Please!" A woman's voice was heard pleading, "We have children!"

"Let them in. Please. They're coming. Just let them in." A weak, deep voice cracked. One that thankfully Carl was still not within hearing distance of.

As Carl approached the gate and the group of people who had run to and begun surrounding the entrance in response to the commotion and his heart was sinking. He began to run down the street, fear rising in his chest. Dark thoughts swirling around in his head like water draining quickly down a drain. 

But then, as he reached the crowd, through the people he saw a little girl step into view at the crack in the gate. Dark eyes, long brown hair braided on one side, and a cowboy hat atop her head. 

Carl's breath caught in his throat. He didn't know that girl but he knew that hat. It was his father's. No, it was _his_. It was _Judith's_. It suddenly felt as if a wave had crashed over him, drowning him. 

Unsure of what was happening Carl took a step back, the gate was suddenly opening, and the crowd of people gathered around were moving back. The little girl had entered and almost ran past Carl. As he starred in the direction she had gone someone grabbed him by the upper arm and started pulling him away from the group as more people entered.

He looked down to see a face that looked slightly familiar and all too strange at the same time. A woman whose face was less round and bright than he remembered, blond hair pulled up in a ponytail that was messier than he remembered. 

"Carl!" Christina exclaimed, continuing to pull him, "Thank God! Where are the doctors?! Your hospital?! Infirmary?!"

"What? I..." Carl began, then suddenly realizing with shock that he had just been dreaming about Christina, the woman who had nursed him back to health, probably saved his life, years ago. 

Someone else pointed Christina in the direction of the house where they kept what little medical supplies they had, and she continued to pull Carl in that direction. While still incredibly confused about what was taking place, and put off back the fact she had such a tight grip on him, he continued to allowed her to do so, eyes searching through the group surrounding them, hoping to catch another glance of that little girl.

That's when he saw the long, dark, dreaded hair pulled back by a piece of plaid cloth tied on top of her head, a beautiful face he hadn't seen in over four years and it felt like a shock of electricity had coursed through his veins. He locked eyes with her and couldn't believe what he was seeing, emotions flooding over him and almost causing his legs to give out underneath him. For a fleeting moment he wondered if she recognized him too, but knew she had to. His eye began to scan the crowd looking for more familiar faces, for one more familiar face. The one he wanted to see the most. Where was his dad?

"Stop! He's been bitten! You cannot bring him in here!" One of the neighbors screamed. 

Dumbfounded he looked from Michonne to Christina and back to Michonne again, and that's when he noticed that between Michonne and another man he didn't know, they were almost carrying someone, his arms held around each of their shoulders.

_Crash, intransitive verb, a: to break or go to pieces with or as if with violence and noise, b: to fall, land, or hit with destructive force, and c: to decline suddenly and steeply. Synonyms for crash: smash, crunch, disintegrate, fracture, fragment, shatter_

Negan.


End file.
